It's that time again—our quarterly review. This time in the form of an annual review...We got hammered. The African bush knows how to rid you of all self elevation or haughty looks. We set off to the Zambezi valley a few weeks ago, just after...

]]>It's that time again—our quarterly review. This time in the form of an annual review...We got hammered. The African bush knows how to rid you of all self elevation or haughty looks. We set off to the Zambezi valley a few weeks ago, just after...

It's that time again—our quarterly review. This time in the form of an annual review...

We got hammered.

The African bush knows how to rid you of all self elevation or haughty looks. We set off to the Zambezi valley a few weeks ago, just after the first rains, and got our backsides handed to us. It's a camping trip we do each year.

This time, there was a flood just before. We still went—as adventurers do. As Africans do. As Zimbabweans do.

We went in spite of the warnings, the possibilities of hope deferred by situations beyond our control. It parallels the previous political landscape and maybe even the current one. Get it—bush landscape and political landscape. Terror. Wild animals. Flash floods. Possibilities of nonsense and surprises.

We got stuck. Once. Dodging the huge puddles but then a trailer flipped behind one of the cargo vehicles and thrust it into a ditch filled with water. Done. The tractor from Zimbabwe National Parks had to pull it out (2 hours later) and the trailer was left for dead.

Then another vehicle broke down with no reason. It had to eventually be towed back to town (350+ kilometers away) and two rescue vehicles were sent to save the bush crew. The rescue vehicles came out with suspension problems and with loose parts.

Getting home was a delight, but we wouldn't have traded the experience for the world.

It's a complete give and take, doing what we do in Africa.

There's the take. And it takes its toll on you. This year has been one of those toll-bearing situations.

Dollar de-valuing on black market faster than anyone could get money out of the bank.

Scare and real time reactions of hyperinflation.

Not being able to trade outside of Zimbabwe with local money.

The ongoing water issues at home—where it should be normal.

The lawsuits which are completely based on greed and not validity.

The constant stare of despair in people’s faces as they just try to survive the economic war zone Zimbabwe has become.

Zero progress or in many cases backwards progress in our companies based in the mining sector, resources, and tech.

You've got these moments that are monumental. Huge. Hilarious.

This year those were:

Educate received additional funding. Their targets are being hit.

Hopley community catalyst. A team of partners rolled into town and we’re reaching that community in a greater way.

Soccer tournament in one of the poorest places in Zimbabwe.

A change of president. The first time in 37 years.

Cops are off the roads.

Local VAT tax was cut in half.

We Sold a concept, script and story to a major network about the Zimbabwe hope arising and new direction. Check it out here.

There are battle scars and so many things have been left for dead like the trailer on our camping trip. Sometimes they're better left out in the wild, without an additional attempt to revive them. We've left companies and closed them off, because the journey onwards would have been slowed down. Other times you have to send rescue vehicles and get help from outside. We're starting to really see that work with our international friends and partners. So bear with us as we spill out the metaphors and be as raw as we can about our wins and losses.

To end this post. Check out the link that our team at CMedia created that's completely shaping the direction of the hope conversation for the entire nation. We sold it to a company to make it sustainable, but the story is out there. Check it out because it looks like the nation might have just gotten out of the wilderness.

Focus is doing things with a clear intention and making sure that all your decisions match your intention. Focusing isn’t simply about avoiding the temptation to multitask until a priority project is complete. Instead, it means truly understanding what you...

]]>Focus is doing things with a clear intention and making sure that all your decisions match your intention. Focusing isn’t simply about avoiding the temptation to multitask until a priority project is complete. Instead, it means truly understanding what you...

Focus is doing things with a clear intention and making sure that all your decisions match your intention.

Focusing isn’t simply about avoiding the temptation to multitask until a priority project is complete. Instead, it means truly understanding what you want to accomplish and centering your activities entirely around that.

Questions to ask to find focus on a project:

What is the main problem this product is solving?

Who are the people we are solving this problem for?

What is the emotion/feeling that we want our product to create or evoke?

Is this particular implementation aligned with the problem we're solving for?

Is this the product/feature most likely to successfully solve that problem?

When confronted with huge debt payments, a legal case, and dwindling profits, Richard Branson’s Virgin Records was faced with a cash crisis. In reflecting on his crisis, he said that there are two ways to deal with such a situation...

]]>When confronted with huge debt payments, a legal case, and dwindling profits, Richard Branson’s Virgin Records was faced with a cash crisis. In reflecting on his crisis, he said that there are two ways to deal with such a situation...

When confronted with huge debt payments, a legal case, and dwindling profits, Richard Branson’s Virgin Records was faced with a cash crisis.

In reflecting on his crisis, he said that there are two ways to deal with such a situation:

Trim the fat. Shutter the windows. Close the back door. Let some people go. Cut expenses and play to the level that’s just below your current level. Or...

Expand. Hire new business. Go into new territories. Build systems to handle new clients, sales, and territories. Hustle and find ways to grow.

The best way to deal with a cash crisis is to expand. You can always trim the fat and run things at a smaller level. But where’s the fun and growth in that?

I can hear many of you saying, there’s no business available! Easy for you to say expand.

The difference here is vision. Is your vision big enough to expand?

If not, you might want to start there.

And, Branson only paid himself 20 pounds a week. For years. Are you willing to make that long term sacrifice?

The playing field isn’t level. It does matter who you are, where you live, and who you know. It matters a lot. With technology today, the geography is still important, but where you live isn’t as important as it once was. For example...

]]>The playing field isn’t level. It does matter who you are, where you live, and who you know. It matters a lot. With technology today, the geography is still important, but where you live isn’t as important as it once was. For example...

The playing field isn’t level. It does matter who you are, where you live, and who you know. It matters a lot.

With technology today, the geography is still important, but where you live isn’t as important as it once was.

For example, crowdfunding helps leveling the playing field. It’s more about the interesting product and the your story versus who's behind it (your connections). It’s becoming more of a meritocracy.

But if you’re trying to launch a business (or a startup) in a small African country, you’ll need to have a plan to negate the business environment you’re in. If your vision is to keep your startup local, then you need to switch and call it what it is—a small business. And we love small businesses! The more the merrier. But entrepreneurs have to stop parading around as a scalable business when the vision may be to transform your corner.

I found an interesting interview with Steve Case about the third wave of the internet. The first wave was getting everyone connected online. This started in the early 1990s with 3% of citizens in the USA (where the internet first originated) for about 1 hour per week. The second wave was building...

]]>I found an interesting interview with Steve Case about the third wave of the internet. The first wave was getting everyone connected online. This started in the early 1990s with 3% of citizens in the USA (where the internet first originated) for about 1 hour per week. The second wave was building...

I found an interesting interview with Steve Case (founder of AOL) on youtube recently. It’s full of a ton of really interesting content, but the main focus is on something Case calls the third wave of the internet.

The first wave was getting everyone connected online. This started in the early 1990s with 3% of citizens in the USA (where the internet first originated) for about 1 hour per week.

The second wave was building software and services on top of the internet like apps, smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This was from early 2000s until recently.

And now the third wave is upon us. The third wave is integrating the internet into seamless ways into our lives.

Everything will change in the way its done in the third wave. Think of archaic industries like healthcare and education. All of these will be re-engineered to seamlessly integrate the internet and technology into the process.

Case says that to succeed in the third wave, you’ll have to have extensive domain expertise. In other words, know what you’re doing better than others.

And in order to revolutionize healthcare, farming, education, whatever, you must understand how they work and then add software/coding/tech to that.

Another critical component is to simplify the rules of the road. Uber and Airbnb have been working on a civic level to rewrite laws and work to make things easier to do business. This is different than their initial strategy of ask forgiveness and not permission to do business they way they want to.

Now they’re having to rewrite their strategy to be sustainable for long term growth.

This is important to notice because your strategy to launch only takes you so far. Engagement is what takes you to the next level.

Engaging with the local officials, the local customers, the local employees.

Are you seeing the third wave in your industry? How could you anticipate technology being integrated and build that into your business?

Did you know that 4 out of 5 close door buttons in elevators don’t actually work? Shocking, I know! Why would the manufacturers put out a defective button product? It’s the axis of control designed into...

]]>Did you know that 4 out of 5 close door buttons in elevators don’t actually work? Shocking, I know! Why would the manufacturers put out a defective button product? It’s the axis of control designed into...

Did you know that 4 out of 5 close door buttons in elevators don’t actually work?

Shocking, I know!

Why would the manufacturers put out a defective button product? It’s the axis of control designed into the user experience. And you should copy this in your business too.

The reason most of them don’t work is that people would be closing other people in the door constantly. So they leave the button there to give the people waiting a semblance of control, while also protecting those that may attempt to board the elevator car.

That fact doesn’t stop us from still trying to press the close door button, does it? I do it for fun, hoping I’ll hit one of the 20% of button that actually does do something.

Design close door buttons into your user experience.

Where can you give assurance to the person on the other side of the table in your business?

Options is a good way to do this. You can give a low features package, a middle tier, and a high tier. Your client is in the power seat, but whatever choice she chooses, it is a win-win for both of you.

Similarly, pricing gives your customer a choice. Early bird specials are often like close door buttons.

And how about giving someone your personal mobile phone details? They can always WhatsApp you directly if you’re needed. (If your team is as good as you say they are, then you won’t be needed often, but it gives your customer a control factor).

Think about the experience you’re trying to create and design control buttons into it to make your customer’s journey with you seamless.

Advance. After we all talk, there must be an advance (even if it's something internal). Where did we get to because we all sat down for a meeting? It doesn't have to be a physical destination or a chart, or goals, or minutes. But did we move forward? When the...

]]>Advance. After we all talk, there must be an advance (even if it's something internal). Where did we get to because we all sat down for a meeting? It doesn't have to be a physical destination or a chart, or goals, or minutes. But did we move forward? When the...

Advance.

After we all talk, there must be an advance (even if it's something internal).

Where did we get to because we all sat down for a meeting? It doesn't have to be a physical destination or a chart, or goals, or minutes. But did we move forward?

When the grand ideas and solutions were passionately thrown on the table, did we advance the cause? In amongst the problems and awareness of the "bad things," did we advance?

Retreat.

Retreat means that we don't think what we're doing is working at all. Retreat almost means we shouldn't have picked up the guns in the first place. Retreat means there's not a braveheart warrior or Shaka Zulu standing up boldly against the odds.

How many times did you advance? Ask the next time a meeting is in progress.

Where's the advance? Did we move? Did we gain territory?

Heart territory. Did we get closer as a team, in trust, transparency.

Project territory. Did we carve out the best way to see this project move forward?

Connection territory. Are we considering all the different relationships that could boost our strength and effectiveness?

Money territory. Did we slice down our costs and make good investment decisions?

Fun territory. If it's fun, it definitely means you’re not on the retreat. If it gets too serious, you've got to advance the fun.

After every project meeting, discussion, or conversation, consider the advance and make plans to keep the momentum rolling forward.

Those invested in the traditional disruption narrative would have you believe it’s definition is limited to autonomy, electrification, and still undefined pitch words like mobility—a first-world view easily digested in the United States, whose 321 million citizens comprise only...

]]>Those invested in the traditional disruption narrative would have you believe it’s definition is limited to autonomy, electrification, and still undefined pitch words like mobility—a first-world view easily digested in the United States, whose 321 million citizens comprise only...

Those invested in the traditional disruption narrative would have you believe it’s definition is limited to autonomy, electrification, and still undefined pitch words like mobility—a first-world view easily digested in the United States, whose 321 million citizens comprise only 4% of the world population. Throw in similar markets like Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia and we’re still only talking about about 14% of the world’s 7.3 billion people.

For the other 86% of human souls, disruption means other things. In the developing world, its manifestation might take the form of a bicycle. In places like China, it might be having the right to own a car, or a place to park one. In India, where the average wage remains a fraction of those in the first world, it starts with an affordable car that isn’t a complete piece of junk.

Disruption looks different (as do most things) based on your cultural context.

In many places in Africa, having steady electricity, internet, and a smartphone charge is important. This then leads to income generating business ideas that don’t involve full-on manual labour—swap digging trenches for building websites.

The thing is, you can’t design disruption into your business (or go after an industry) if you’re trying to force your culture into a context that sees things differently.

It’s more than a square peg into a round hole paradox. It’s more like demanding a German schedule onto a Zimbabwean bus departure. It’ll never work and just leave everyone scratching their heads and irritated with each other.

You can either whine about the clash of cultures. Or you can put your culture on the sideline for a few and enjoy the discovery and bewilderment of diving into another’s context. It’s a fascinating exercise that leads to deeper transformation in the longterm. And that’s the disruption that matters.

To put it bluntly, disrupt your own way of thinking first before you seek to change others.

What makes an entrepreneur successful? Some people believe it’s the ability to innovate. However, many startups are refinements of existing business models or improvements on how everyday products and services are delivered...

]]>What makes an entrepreneur successful? Some people believe it’s the ability to innovate. However, many startups are refinements of existing business models or improvements on how everyday products and services are delivered...

Some people believe it’s the ability to innovate. However, many startups are refinements of existing business models or improvements on how everyday products and services are delivered.

How about access to capital? [But] there are plenty of successful startups that survived on the thinnest of shoestrings for their first few years.

Management skill? Give me a break. Entrepreneurs are famously short-tempered and few have the patience to coach employees.

There is one thing and one thing alone that every great entrepreneur absolutely must possess: courage. It takes courage to forego the predictability of a corporate job. It takes courage to sacrifice your nest egg to your startup. It takes courage to take the risk of failure. And it takes courage — lots of it — to hand over the reins when your startup grows beyond your ability to manage it.

Do you ever stop and ask yourself why you’re doing the things you’re doing? I have days where I get a ton of crap done. I mean I’m blazing trails, on the phone, knocking out emails like your favorite cricket or baseball batter. You should see me on these days...

]]>Do you ever stop and ask yourself why you’re doing the things you’re doing? I have days where I get a ton of crap done. I mean I’m blazing trails, on the phone, knocking out emails like your favorite cricket or baseball batter. You should see me on these days...

I have days where I get a ton of crap done. I mean I’m blazing trails, on the phone, knocking out emails like your favorite cricket or baseball batter. You should see me on these days. I’m efficient and I’m on top of life.

But sometimes something pretty unnerving happens.

As I approach the end of my day reflecting on all that I’ve done and start ordering my schedule for the next day…I think to myself, “Man, I had a great day. I got a lot done.”

Then this little voice in my head says, "But did I get the right things done?"

You can be the most efficient person on the planet, but if you’re not being effective with the right things, it doesn’t matter.

Peter Drucker, the famous management guru, said “Efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right things."

Efficiency is doing things with excellence and doing them well.

Effectiveness is doing the right things and adding in efficiency over time.

A coke has a bottleneck and your business does too."It's stuck again!" The employees cry out. It’s stuck as it’s coming down that small decision making squeeze in the system. Everyone is frustrated and your team wants to throw in the towel...

]]>A coke has a bottleneck and your business does too."It's stuck again!" The employees cry out. It’s stuck as it’s coming down that small decision making squeeze in the system. Everyone is frustrated and your team wants to throw in the towel...

A coke has a bottleneck and your business does too.

"It's stuck again!" The employees cry out. It’s stuck as it’s coming down that small decision making squeeze in the system.

Everyone is frustrated and your team wants to throw in the towel. "It takes so long to push something through, we're always waiting on Mr. Borewell to approve.”

Mr. Borwell knows everything, it all comes to his desk and no one can buy as much as a button of sticky stuff without his green light. (At least it's all in the open).

The swing to the other end of the communication jungle are silos.

"Everyone works in isolation," says the frustrated leader. I don't see what anyone is doing. I can't tell if we're hitting our targets. I just get presented with stuff that I have no clue why we're even doing that.”

A bottleneck is something that clogs your organization's workflow. It can come in many forms: bad culture, too much information, too much work, too little work, only one capable decision maker, etc.

Silos are created when the pendulum swings the other way and everyone works in isolation: lack of communication, clearly defined vision and goals, and criticism is directed from each silo toward one another.

Bottlenecks (too much info) lead to Silos (I don't want any info) and the vicious cycle starts to ping back and forth.

So what do we do? Beers have bottlenecks, old school cokes have bottle necks, salad dressings have bottlenecks and that's where they belong. Farms have silos so the nothing spills out and so that no pests destroy the harvested grain.

Here’s the Way to Look at Silos and Bottlenecks:

#1: Have lanes not silos. Lanes allow you to see what everyone else is doing and being able to openly watch everyone make progress, without having to open up a door or go through a wall. Make the goals and work projects transparent.

#2: Don't have bottlenecks, rather have empowerment checkpoints. Create targets that your team pushes for and make clear the empowerment incentive when they hit the target. Create your framework before initiation of a project and make sure you have specific desired outcomes. This way, decision approvals are done in advance. When the target is hit, the bottleneck becomes the acceleration point of incentive. "Here's the report, it hit all the targets—check my work if you'd like—we want to move onto the next project." BOOM.

Bottlenecks will always pop up in your organization. Don’t allow them to fling you to the other side of the spectrum and create silos. Rather, rally the troops, set clear goals and incentives, and empower decisions to be made to press past the bottleneck with streamlined efficiency.

Simon Sinek gave a talk recently that discussed what makes an effective leader. He said there are three main characteristics: courage, character, and integrity... how do you actually walk out integrity? ...

]]>Simon Sinek gave a talk recently that discussed what makes an effective leader. He said there are three main characteristics: courage, character, and integrity... how do you actually walk out integrity? ...

Simon Sinek gave a talk recently that discussed what makes an effective leader. He said there are three main characteristics:

courage

character

and integrity.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how do you actually walk out integrity?

Sinek says it starts by being authentic. And authentic means you do and say the things you believe.

Living with authentic integrity sometimes puts you in situations where the betterment of a deal (or relationship or conversation) will go against you. For example, you make less money or give credit where credit is due. But you do these things because it’s the right thing to do.

Living with integrity is saying "I didn’t do that, she did. Oh and by the way, she’s smarter than me."

But what about charisma? You don’t have to be that interesting or have the best personality to be a great leader.

What about vision? You don’t have to have a vision to change the world, but you do need to take care of the people around you.

Being Steve Jobs is not a prerequisite for effective leadership.

Effective leadership can be very small on the vision scale.

And a side note here, leadership and authority are not the same thing. There are many people with great authority who are not leaders. We do what they tell us because they have authority over us. But we do not follow them.

And then there are people at low levels of authority, but they’ve made a choice to lead. Which means that they’ve consciously chosen to take care of the person to their left and to their right. And they would follow him and trust him always.

Leadership is the commitment to take care of one other human being even if it’s just one person. And that’s why people choose to follow you because they trust that you’ll be there for them. And you are their safety net.

]]>http://emergingideas.com/what-makes-an-effective-leaderWhat Do You Do When You Don't Know What To Do?http://emergingideas.com/what-do-you-do-when-you-dont-know-what-to-doThu, 28 Sep 2017 05:00:00 GMTpitch@emergingideas.comTim & Tommy

Things have been crazy to say the least. Inflation is on the rise again in Zimbabwe. Have you see the queues for fuel at the petrol stations? It feels so much like 2008 all over again, doesn't it? So what do you do?

]]>Things have been crazy to say the least. Inflation is on the rise again in Zimbabwe. Have you see the queues for fuel at the petrol stations? It feels so much like 2008 all over again, doesn't it? So what do you do?

Things have been crazy to say the least. Inflation is on the rise again in Zimbabwe. Have you see the queues for fuel at the petrol stations? It feels so much like 2008 all over again, doesn't it?

So what do you do?

We all have friends and family who are leaving Zim, if they haven’t left already. Do you stay or do you go?

These are all valid questions and I think your answer really depends on this:

Who are you? And why are you here?

If you don’t have personal answers to those questions, it’s always challenging to navigate a storm, no matter the size.

In other words, what’s your purpose? What’s the point?

We live in a fascinating time where geography is a lot less meaningful than it used to be. You can work with a team of people stationed all across the world and still be productive, collaborative, and profitable all together.

So for us, we’re not so concerned about where our colleagues are as much as why they’re there. Because if we know the why, then we can still work together, support one another, and build something that’s worth spending part of our lives on.

And if you have a higher belief in life, this grounding and focus makes all the difference when you’re in the midst of chaos and the storm we’re in now.

“They call us crazy because they think we’re [only] exploring outer space and gazing at the stars, but they can’t see the bigger picture.” If it hasn’t happened already, it will. Someone will not get what you do. And you should welcome this because...

]]>“They call us crazy because they think we’re [only] exploring outer space and gazing at the stars, but they can’t see the bigger picture.” If it hasn’t happened already, it will. Someone will not get what you do. And you should welcome this because...

“They call us crazy because they think we’re [only] exploring outer space and gazing at the stars, but they can’t see the bigger picture.” Abinet Ezra of the Ethiopian Space Science Society

If it hasn’t happened already, it will. Someone will not get what you do. And you should welcome this because it’ll strengthen how you communicate what you do.

There are two main types of “they don’t get it” moments.

They don’t get it cause what you’re doing is great, but how you communicated it is terrible.

They don’t get it cause what you’re doing is terrible. At which point, you should take their advice and move on to something else.

But if you fall into category number one, then here are a few things you can tweak to communicate what it is that you’re doing.

#1: Start with a short concise statement.

What do you do? Sometimes that leads you into a rabbit trail of many different things leaving everyone in a pool of confusion.

Use a metaphor or a tagline. The best way to do this is to take a large existing service or company and then make it relevant for your industry.

“Have you heard of the company called Spotify? We’re like that but for local African artists."

#2: Make it usable.

Someone should be able to easily remember what you said and share that with someone else. That’s a sign of true success. If you’re at a networking event and someone meets you, then immediately is able to introduce you to someone else using your descriptive statement, then you’re winning.

“Oh Mary, I want to introduce you to George. He’s building a brick-making company that also plans to solve the housing crisis in the nation.”

#3: Leads into a follow-up question and conversation.

You shouldn’t give away your entire story in the first 10 seconds of a conversation. It’s a relationship, there needs to be ebb and flow. And hopefully you care about the person you’re speaking with. So slow things down. Get to know them and chit chat about what you’re working on too.

At this point in the convo, they may call you crazy, but at least they can explain what it is that you’re doing to other people.

You can make an impact with your business relationships. You can. But can you really do business and have fun at the same time? Yes, but only if you manage expectations, set them appropriately, communicate them effectively, then achieve them and hopefully exceed them. Do you...

]]>You can make an impact with your business relationships. You can. But can you really do business and have fun at the same time? Yes, but only if you manage expectations, set them appropriately, communicate them effectively, then achieve them and hopefully exceed them. Do you...

You can make an impact with your business relationships. You can. But can you really do business and have fun at the same time?

Yes, but only if you manage expectations, set them appropriately, communicate them effectively, then achieve them and hopefully exceed them.

Do you design exceeding expectations into your business model?

It’s a paradigm shift to think this way.

Most businesses are just trying to get customers and then manage their expectations.

But what if you could build exceeding expectations into your plan? In other words, every client you do business with walks away feeling like you understood them and exceeded what your relationship was all about.

Underpromise and overdeliver.

It’s a bit of reverse psychology maybe. But it’s really about knowing what value you bring to the table, communicating it, and then saving a little cherry on top for a bonus surprise at the end.

Let me give you an example…

Construction sites are incredible things. Big earthmovers and excavators shaping ground and laying foundations for people’s investments, hopes, dreams, and futures. But they’re also notorious for missing deadlines and making a bit of a mess. And it’s rare after someone builds a new home or remodels one that they leave it looking clean and polished.

Our friends own a construction company. They weren’t our friends at first, but after we worked with them, now they are.

We started talking about designing Exceeding Expectation into their business.

So here’s what they did…

They started hiring the best cleaning company and the best maids to come into their projects when they were nearly complete. They would detail the house like it was their own. Spiffy, bright, sparkly, and brand new.

And then, they would contract with that cleaning company for a few months and offer deep cleans to their clients at no extra cost. So you would get an amazing new project, and they would clean it for their clients for the first 6 months that they lived there!

That’s unheard of. And it made a splash for sure. Their clients loved it.

And guess what, their clients referred them to all of their friends! It’s their best referral plan because they are exceeding expectations. And it’s all designed into their plan.

People love secrets, surprises, great deals, and over and above treatment.

What about if you showed up at a conference and they greeted you like this, “Welcome! Here’s a custom name tag, a special coconut water, a seat at the head table, and a huge greeting from our team that makes you feel like a million bucks." That’s an expectation exceeding greeting for your conference attendees.

OR "here’s our proposal on the project we discussed. We went ahead and included a distribution strategy in this document. Feel free to have that even if you don’t work with us, but we’ll be able to partner with you and help you get your message out because we get what you’re trying to accomplish."

The main point here is that you have to know your customers better than they know themselves. And, then be able to communicate that in a way that instills confidence and trust in you as a valuable partner.

Some exercises to think through:

How do you visually show your customers the value that you produce for them?

Do you have a process or a step-by-step gameplan for them to follow so expectations are managed?

Do you state the expectations from the first meeting? This is what you can expect from us…

Do you have an exciting cherry on top bonus that you can include when delivering your product or service?

Now it’s your turn, how can you exceed your clients’ expectations and then design that into your business?

Napoleon Bonaparte was the most powerful man on the planet in 1808. He had conquered the known world and was implementing a global control he dubbed the Continental System. This system was a designed blockade to prevent trade and commerce to flow from Europe to Great Britain, his next target...

]]>Napoleon Bonaparte was the most powerful man on the planet in 1808. He had conquered the known world and was implementing a global control he dubbed the Continental System. This system was a designed blockade to prevent trade and commerce to flow from Europe to Great Britain, his next target...

Napoleon Bonaparte was the most powerful man on the planet in 1808. He had conquered the known world and was implementing a global control he dubbed the Continental System. This system was a designed blockade to prevent trade and commerce to flow from Europe to Great Britain, his next target.

However, this system and series of decisions was one of the contributing factors to the weakening of Napoleon’s power. Spain and Russia were both still able to trade with Great Britain. This factor was one of the main causes that Napoleon and his French troops invaded both nations.

But the world’s greatest leader was blind to a handful of facts, which resulted in poor decisions. These decisions ultimately led to the demise of his empire.

Fact #1: Napoleon grossly underestimated the severity of the Russian winter. Terrible atrocities occurred because they were severely underprepared. His decimated troops ultimately had to retreat.

Fact #2: Napoleon sent troops to Spain, but they got caught in the Spanish War of Independence (aka the War of 1812). They were tied down, waylaid, and ultimately had to retreat.

Fact #3: He imprisoned the Pope because of the Pope's remarks and direct defiance to Napoleon's Continental System (amongst a few other factors). Things never go well when you imprison a man of God.

In reading Napoleon’s story, one thing is clear. Very few had the freedom to speak honestly into his life. And when he made these decisions, he didn’t filter the facts with logical reasoning.

In other words, as he grew more powerful, his decision making deteriorated.

"The historian Henry Adams...described power as 'a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.’” (source: The Atlantic)

There was a recent, psychological study conducted by Owen Davey and published in the Harvard Business Review in 2016. Davey writes, "While people usually gain power through traits and actions that advance the interests of others, such as empathy, collaboration, openness, fairness, and sharing; when they start to feel powerful or enjoy a position of privilege, those qualities begin to fade...Power does tend to corrupt.”

“Hubris syndrome is a disorder of the possession of power, particularly power which has been associated with overwhelming success, held for a period of years and with minimal constraint on the leader.”

Power unchecked acts like a disease on the brain.

The key to fighting this disease of power?

Staying grounded and remembering times when you weren’t powerful.

I don’t think that can be done in isolation or individually. You need longstanding friends and family to guide you in this sort of coping with power.

Ask yourself, who has the freedom to speak into your life candidly? When no one else will tell you the truth, who does?

If the most powerful man in the world can experience this, and this is repeated countless times throughout history, then what makes you think you can make it on your own?

Power demands honesty and humility. Without it, it’ll corrupt you (and fast).

"Zimbabwe’s US dollar bond notes have lost value and encouraged value arbitrage,” reads the headlines. We’ve been through this before. And businesses everywhere are bracing for 2008 again. It’s been slow like the water boiling with the frogs inside...

]]>"Zimbabwe’s US dollar bond notes have lost value and encouraged value arbitrage,” reads the headlines. We’ve been through this before. And businesses everywhere are bracing for 2008 again. It’s been slow like the water boiling with the frogs inside...

"Zimbabwe’s US dollar bond notes have lost value and encouraged value arbitrage,” reads the headlines.

We’ve been through this before. And businesses everywhere are bracing for 2008 again. It’s been slow like the water boiling with the frogs inside. But ever so slowly, it’s creeping up. 2.1% inflation is the official number that seems to get some discussion. But the informal market always tells the truth (read more about that here—When the Illegitimate Becomes the Legitimate). End of last week, we received reports that the value of a Zimbabwean bond note was 50% of a US Dollar. Today it’s 2 to 1. Double inflation in less than a week.

The feelings are surfacing again. Anxious discussions and questions are all around. But the intriguing thing is because the entire system was moved to e-currency last year, we’re not feeling it like we did then. We can’t get access to cash anyway, most of the banks we work with are offering $20 cash per week on a corporate account. Per week!

Everything is transferred cash. E-currency. It props up balances of banks accounts that the owners know are all a facade. The money isn’t really there. It’s like a game of Monopoly where the players leverage hotels and houses on their properties, but don’t have enough cash to pay rent on their own homes.

Arbitrage creates mis-pricing and mis-pricing allows some people to make a lot of money while the greater majority generally get poorer.

We’ve spoken to a number of foreign investors who are watching Zim carefully. Their money is on the sidelines for the time being because they can see the results of poor fiscal management. There’s much opportunity, great investments to be made, but in a climate where the value is warped and manipulated out of every dollar, it’s hard to make profit guarantees.

It’s not all bleak. There are some brilliant teams continuing to keep their ships afloat. But they have immense courage and great faith. It’s not for the weak minded nor the faint of heart. And we’re proud of these teams. The amazing thing they’re doing is that they are operating in reality. They tell the truth on their financials because they have nothing to hide.

If you’re a business owner who continues to roll your assets forward and make it look like you’re having your best year yet (especially banks with their profits from their ridiculous fees), you have a hard reality awaiting you soon. Those that have been transparent and honest from the get go can show that if they survive and thrive in this harsh environment, they can do so anywhere.

And what good does profit do you if you can’t get it out of the banks nor out of the country?

This is why it’s so important to know the goal of your organization/team/project in this climate. Know it, agree up on it, state it clearly, and go for it. If you don’t have a clear vision now, you won’t last (more about that here).

I had the opportunity to sit with one of my heroes recently and hear him speak at a conference. He said, "I have never done anything in my life except through relationships.” That’s been so true in my life too. Projects, businesses, investments, ideas, lunches, camping trips, family, it’s all...

]]>I had the opportunity to sit with one of my heroes recently and hear him speak at a conference. He said, "I have never done anything in my life except through relationships.” That’s been so true in my life too. Projects, businesses, investments, ideas, lunches, camping trips, family, it’s all...

I had the opportunity to sit with one of my heroes recently and hear him speak at a conference. He said, "I have never done anything in my life except through relationships.”

That’s been so true in my life too. Projects, businesses, investments, ideas, lunches, camping trips, family, it’s all been by relationship.

Too often in life, we value the transaction more than relationship. That’s wrong. We have to stop doing that.

I stumbled upon a story recently and it was fascinating to me. One of the top investors in Silicon Valley (near San Jose, California) has a long standing pickup basketball game. It’s invite only. And it’s competitive and intense. They even invite former NBA players to play. So you know it’s fun!

Plato said, “You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

That’s the beauty of this basketball game, the investor gets to see how the fellow players react in the heat of the moment. How do they handle themselves in competition? What kind of person are they?

So they play a game for an hour. You can read more about that story here. That's valuing relationships.

Also, it's not about what you do, but who you know. And you know what? This is also a strong mindset of the wealthy—relationships and connections are paramount. You can see this in how they educate their children. It’s not about a degree or a grade, but rather who is sending their children to this university? This is why many of the elite go to typical types of schools (Ivy League, MBA specialty schools, top law schools, etc).

It’s all about relationships. And that’s why they matter. There are a lot of they's in your life. How do you view them? And how wealthy are you in terms of your relationships?

Relationships require time, trust, and intentionality. They’re not built overnight, but they’re the most valuable thing you can have in life.

"He just came out of fifteen years in prison this weekend." This is how I got introduced to Wes. His eyes were wide with earnestness and his smile seemed a little big. Without context, he was way too eager to talk and way too enthusiastic about...

]]>"He just came out of fifteen years in prison this weekend." This is how I got introduced to Wes. His eyes were wide with earnestness and his smile seemed a little big. Without context, he was way too eager to talk and way too enthusiastic about...

"He just came out of fifteen years in prison this weekend." This is how I got introduced to Wes.

His eyes were wide with earnestness and his smile seemed a little big. Without context, he was way too eager to talk and way too enthusiastic about meeting me.

He didn't know how to use a smartphone, he'd been eating synthetic oats for fifteen years, and his only friends were murderers and meth users. Those facts shoved me out of my assumption box.

He spent fifteen years of his life behind bars with a dubious sentence that should have only been a few years. His stories were so detailed and really long. He didn't know what social media was and so 140 characters was not his limit in conversation.

He didn't know how to reach for a phone, so in our conversations he looked me straight in the eyes with no distractions or intentions of ever leaving the conversation. (Let's just say FaceTime completely rocked his world).

He would have talked the entire night. And I would have listened.

He hadn't had real coffee for over a decade, which I can't even imagine, so everything tasted, touched and smelled brand new.

It was a miracle how he got out because it could have been a lot longer had he not kept his cool inside the prison. It was a struggle because the battle for freedom took incredibly long. He lost hope seven times and found it again each time.

He wrestled with his sentence—one that was biased and slanted against him—he never had a prior criminal record. In the cell, he slept with a sock over his face because they never turned the lights off. Now, he doesn’t know how to handle the dark now that he's out.

He hadn't hugged a friend for 5,000 days. In normal situations he wouldn't be able to get a job after this conviction.

Here he was—full of life, full of vision, full of gratitude, and around friends. His body was ripped. He worked out every day in there. He'd gotten firm in his faith and even though he had a tracker around his ankle, he was full of life.

I was challenged.

The life and enthusiasm this guy had was ten out of ten. Most people I meet, who've hardly even been to a prison, are on a level four.

He could look at his life and say:

Fifteen years wasted or fifteen years in preparation.

Fifteen years behind bars or fifteen years writing a story of perseverance.

Fifteen years of injustice or fifteen years of character carving.

Fifteen years where nothing was accomplished or fifteen years getting free from every distraction.

Fifteen years of seeing nothing but bars or fifteen years of perspective building.

My best days were wasted or my best days are right in front of me.

We instantly hit it off. And his love for life was contagious. It got me thinking about a lot.

Do I have the perspective of a former prisoner? The hard stuff that I've been through, do I look back on it as the set up to the victory or as something that's been wasted?

Do I look at the hard times now, and think, “Well, it's beyond hope…”

Victory isn't as sweet without hope. And hope makes the tough times worth it.

Some of the most creative people, companies and bands are known for putting their best ideas out there. That's a scary thing to do because what if you don't have as good of an idea next time? But that's the beauty of forcing...

]]>Some of the most creative people, companies and bands are known for putting their best ideas out there. That's a scary thing to do because what if you don't have as good of an idea next time? But that's the beauty of forcing...

Some of the most creative people, companies and bands are known for putting their best ideas out there.

That's a scary thing to do because what if you don't have as good of an idea next time?

But that's the beauty of forcing yourself to be reinvented. People expect your best and nothing less. And when you start forcing yourself to produce greatness over and over again, the best start to respond to that level of expectation.

Are you afraid to put your best idea out there?

Why?

Theft

Failure

Rejection

Those are all real things you have to deal with. But the worst of all is regret. "What would have happened if I had only shipped your idea? If I had tried it?"

Imagine you were living during the days of Thomas Edison. He invents the light bulb, then electrical currents are installed in streets, then into businesses, then homes. Now you can have light in your home. Can you imagine walking into a house that had electricity for the very first time? The hum...

]]>Imagine you were living during the days of Thomas Edison. He invents the light bulb, then electrical currents are installed in streets, then into businesses, then homes. Now you can have light in your home. Can you imagine walking into a house that had electricity for the very first time? The hum...

Imagine you were living during the days of Thomas Edison. He invents the light bulb, then electrical currents are installed in streets, then into businesses, then homes. Now you can have light in your home.

Can you imagine walking into a house that had electricity for the very first time?

The hum and the whir of the transistors. The crackle of the lighting flying through the wires to ignite an incandescent light bulb. It would have been exhilarating. And you would have been scared to death.

Apply this same thought process to what’s happening with computer (machine) learning today. It’s commonly known as AI—artificial intelligence.

Robots, computers, machines will be taking all of the rote, autonomous jobs and more in the coming era. If you’ve seen the movie I, Robot, then you’ll have a good idea of what this may look like.

Being smart will no longer mean what it means today. Being smart won’t be memorizing facts and being able to sort through knowledge and data faster than your classmates. A computer will obliterate any patterns or algorithms your mind could process.

But, AI cannot do the intangibles—emotional intelligence.

Ed Hess wrote in Harvard Business Review, "The new smart will be about trying to overcome the two big inhibitors of critical thinking and team collaboration: our ego and our fears. Doing so will make it easier to perceive reality as it is, rather than as we wish it to be. In short, we will embrace humility. That is how we humans will add value in a world of smart technology.”

Humility is challenging because it isn’t something you can just assume or put on. That’s called false humility, when you give the appearance of being humble, but for an underlying motive.

True humility comes from who you are, what you believe, and what your purpose is in life.

There’s a famous proverb that says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Isn’t it ironic that all these years later and the AI revolution is showcasing the value of humility. We write about this a lot, but it’s valuable to ask yourself regularly: who are you and who are you becoming?

When you encounter a lion in the bush, the typical advice for survival is to stand up as tall as you can, put your arms in the air, and make some noise. "That usually works," my professional hunter friend says. "But if he charges you...

]]>When you encounter a lion in the bush, the typical advice for survival is to stand up as tall as you can, put your arms in the air, and make some noise. "That usually works," my professional hunter friend says. "But if he charges you...

When you encounter a lion in the bush, the typical advice for survival is to stand up as tall as you can, put your arms in the air, and make some noise.

"That usually works," my professional hunter friend says. "But if he charges you, stare him down square in the eyes.”

Facing adversity is a fact of life.

And I’ve consistently noticed that when Adversity comes knocking, you will never be ready for him. He likes to hit when you don’t seem him coming.

Boom.

The question is where will he find you?

Will you be looking Adversity square in the eyes? Will you face the challenges head on with integrity and strong leadership?

Often I am so surprised when Adversity shows up. But the longer I have a go at building a company, the more I realize, he’s always there waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

Will you run? Or will you stand your ground and look intensely into Adversity’s eyes?

It seems counterintuitive to stare down a charging lion, but I’ve found this is the only way to really survive when faced with adversity.

You’ve heard the phrase, "Africa is going to leapfrog developing economics because of technology." If you haven’t, it’s something that’s been flung out there for the past 10 or so years. "It’s the next big market! With over 1 billion...

]]>You’ve heard the phrase, "Africa is going to leapfrog developing economics because of technology." If you haven’t, it’s something that’s been flung out there for the past 10 or so years. "It’s the next big market! With over 1 billion...

You’ve heard the phrase, "Africa is going to leapfrog developing economics because of technology."

If you haven’t, it’s something that’s been flung out there for the past 10 or so years.

"It’s the next big market! With over 1 billion people and growing—Africa is the next frontier of technological advances."

There’s truth in all of those statements. But let’s set the stage first before we get there...

Yinka Adegoke writes, "The successes of mobile money in East Africa and the expansion of 4G networks across Africa has led to discussions of the continent leapfrogging the typical growth that more advanced economies saw over the past few decades. Can Africa leapfrog normal development phases due to rapid, technological advances?”

The main point is that there are zero shortcuts when it comes to building anything—a life, a company, and most certainly a nation. Africa cannot and should stop thinking that it could leapfrog progress.

There’s a number of fascinating case studies in the article. They point to the fact that no advanced economy got where it is today by cutting corners and sidestepping (or leapfrogging) industrialization.

"Infrastructure is both the backbone of the economy and the motherboard of technological innovation. African countries need adequate infrastructure to realize their full potential."

Entrepreneurship and technology are wonderful things and have the potential to continue solving many problems. But without the policies, procedural reforming, and mindset shifting, Africa can’t leap forward with much thrust.

Adegoke continues, "In [Juma’s] view, the failure of the mobile revolution is that while it has worked in opening up communications for tens of millions of ordinary African consumers it hasn’t established an infrastructural base for economic development. African policymakers need to learn this lesson if they really want to promote innovation in their countries.”

We must shift our thinking from generating raw materials to creating products and services that can be sold globally.

The East exports raw materials from Africa and creates mobile phones and sells them back to us.

The Europeans use Africa’s cocoa and sell them globally with massive upsides.

The West loves Africa’s coffee (and oil, lumber, and most talented people).

There’s nothing wrong with all of this—it’s how this global economy works. But we have to understand this fact and begin to create companies with grander visions, larger reaches (which is available today through tech), and open minds that can partner with other regions without the fear that partnership often brings us personally.

In order to act on this, we need industries developed locally first. And that starts with newfound policies. The wheel doesn’t have to be re-created here. There are many case studies of nations turning this around (Juma references Taiwan in Section 3 of his paper. Other nations that turned around: South Korea, China, Germany after WWII, etc.).

"There is little evidence to suggest that countries industrialize by adding value to their raw materials. Rather, the causality runs the other way—countries add value to raw materials because they already have local industries with the capacity to turn raw materials into products. Initial industrial development thus becomes the driver of demand for raw material and value addition rather than the other way around.”

The men who built America are known for their different level of thinking (Rockefeller, Carnegie, JP Morgan, and others). All of these people pioneered something by changing the way their local industries saw the problems. They then opened the door to entire markets to be shifted and created.

If it’s true that Africa cannot leapfrog infrastructure and industrial development, then we must ask ourselves, who will be the Rockefellers and Carnegies of our nations?

Are you willing to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, but also apply your smarts to your processes? A few years ago, I was working with a company who needed regular intel on building projects. They were a group of carpenters and really good ones. But they were having problems getting new projects...

]]>Are you willing to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, but also apply your smarts to your processes? A few years ago, I was working with a company who needed regular intel on building projects. They were a group of carpenters and really good ones. But they were having problems getting new projects...

Are you willing to work harder than you’ve ever worked before, but also apply your smarts to your processes?

A few years ago, I was working with a company who needed regular intel on building projects. They were a group of carpenters and really good ones. But they were having problems getting new projects. Their work was unbelievable—you can’t even imagine what they could do with wood. Beams, trim, artisanal patios, you name it they could build it.

But they couldn’t get projects.

So I sat and asked them a ton of questions about how they close their projects. And through that analysis, we uncovered that if they could get some sort of edge with the new licenses that are granted for building permits, then they’d have a competitive advantage.

It just so happened that in the district they were working, a list of each week's building permits could be acquired for free at the government's city offices. With a few relationships, pleases and thank yous, and a smile, they would give you the permit info.

In other words, they would hand us leads. New sales leads right there for the taking!

So we concocted a plan to acquire those names and numbers of the new permit holders. I built a giant spreadsheet and updated it weekly with the new permits info.

Then began the tough work. We had to call them and convince them as to why they should take a meeting with the outstanding carpenters. The carpenters would call and call, but they just didn’t seem to land the deals.

So I decided to do a 90 day test. I would personally make calls to these permit holders (that’s 12 weeks of contacting them). If I didn’t get them the first time, I’d call several times a week. And then we’d see what the results were after that.

So I sat and dialed phone numbers early in the morning and then around 6pm in the evening. Both are good times for a general contractor’s workload, so they were more likely to answer.

Hi John, how’re you today? I’m reaching out to you regarding the [123 Street Address] project you’re working on. I have a team of absolutely brilliant carpenters. They work hard, finish on time and on budget, and their work is so good…

And we developed the script from there. They had objections like:

I’ve already got a crew. Which I would reply, my guys are better. You give me a call when your guys screw up.We’ve already started the project. Which I would reply, I know you have started, but our work comes in towards the end. I think you should meet our owner and get to know him. He’d be a valuable contact for you.And the list went on.

Dialed and dialed for 90 days.

If I didn’t get someone, I would send them an SMS letting them know the reason I called.

And here’s a little secret, I always treated them like they were my friend already.

After calling each of these permit holders for weeks, I began building relationships with many of them and we would have 10-15 minute conversations.

And guess what? The carpenters started to get deals. And when they did an excellent job, like they always did, they got more business.

In 2007, it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attempts according to TeleNet and Ovation Sales Group. In the construction industry, I found that it took 12 attempts just to get a meeting.

How quickly do you give up?

Did you know that 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls after the meeting? After the meeting! According to The Marketing Donut, 44% of sales people give up after 1 follow-up. Ha! Quitters! That’s money on the table right there for someone who’s willing to not give up.

Be kind. Treat people like friends. Don’t give up.

Do you believe in your product enough to reach out to someone a dozen times? And then, if you aren’t BS’ing them, and can actually do what you say you’ll do, guess what? You’ll start to build a business.

And if you’re really awesome, your customers will start to love you and drag their friends to do business with you too.

It’s not rocket science. But it’s hard work and you may have to sit in a seat for 90 days straight and dial, dial, dial.

Last thing, be organized. I built a mega-spreadsheet to handle all of these leads. You have to be able to know what you talked about last time to this person and follow-up with them on time, all the time. Use technology to keep you organized and you’ll be well on your way to growing your business, no matter the environment.

Being able to distinguish between what’s vital in your business and what’s trivial is a critical skill for successful entrepreneurs to have. The tricky thing is that it isn’t a skill you can just sit down and learn. It’s forged in the...

]]>Being able to distinguish between what’s vital in your business and what’s trivial is a critical skill for successful entrepreneurs to have. The tricky thing is that it isn’t a skill you can just sit down and learn. It’s forged in the...

Being able to distinguish between what’s vital in your business and what’s trivial is a critical skill for successful entrepreneurs to have.

The tricky thing is that it isn’t a skill you can just sit down and learn. It’s forged in the fires of trial and error. You learn this one by trying and trying again. Mentorship and collaboration can help close this feedback loop a bit tighter.

What’s vital to growing your business? And what’s trivial?

Vital:

Doing what you say you’ll do.

Hitting your deadlines.

Responding to your clients’ communications in the form they desire—if they use email, reply. If they call you, answer (call them back).

Cultivating relationships with clients and partners who fit your company and your growth strategy.

Laughing with your team and having moments of enjoyment each day.

Thanking the people in your life who are there for you and help you (investors, partners, employees, managers, family members).

Trivial:

Checking the status of your FB post and seeing how many likes you got.

Checking your email every 30 minutes.

Cold calling people who aren’t your Ideal Customer.

Talking about how hard it is to grow your business. Stop your whining!

Staying current on all of your favorite TV series.

Responding immediately to all those whatsapps and SMS pings on your phone.

Focus on the vital. Ban, reschedule, and delete the trivial. Your success depends on this.

Customers that buy have 58% more objections than potential customers who don’t. Learn to appreciate objections as they provide opportunities to solve customer problems. It’s all in how you look at it....

]]>Customers that buy have 58% more objections than potential customers who don’t. Learn to appreciate objections as they provide opportunities to solve customer problems. It’s all in how you look at it....

Customers that buy have 58% more objections than potential customers who don’t. Learn to appreciate objections as they provide opportunities to solve customer problems.

It’s all in how you look at it. You can welcome questions and think of great ways to answer those questions while also pre-empting even more questions.

Or you can get irritated with the questioning and view it as pestering, badgering, and annoying.

One of the best salesmen I ever met was brilliant at answering questions. But he would go even further in his answers. He would give more information to the future customer that they were already thinking of.

So his answers had a rhythm and pattern to them like this:

“You’re asking about the longevity of the product here. Let me answer this for you by explaining our manufacturing process because I think that’ll also answer some questions you may also be thinking of…”

Then after that he would walk them through the guarantees and how the product and solution would be installed.

He viewed the questions as an exciting potential to get to know a new friend and solve one or more of their problems.

According to Impact Communications, 70% of people make purchasing decisions to solve problems and 30% make decisions to gain something.

Remember, objections are opportunities to earn and build new relationships.

Learn to welcome people’s problems and objections and then solve them with your product, service, and mission.

The biggest fight in history and it is a few days away. "Who's going to win?" We were asked abruptly by an ex-French Foreign Legion Rhodesian sitting next to us on flight a few days ago. “Well, it seems...

]]>The biggest fight in history and it is a few days away. "Who's going to win?" We were asked abruptly by an ex-French Foreign Legion Rhodesian sitting next to us on flight a few days ago. “Well, it seems...

The biggest fight in history and it is a few days away.

"Who's going to win?" We were asked abruptly by an ex-French Foreign Legion Rhodesian sitting next to us on flight a few days ago.

“Well, it seems Mayweather knows the game of boxing better then McGregor…” It's not about who's tougher, fitter or mind-strong in this battle, it's who knows the game well enough.

Ever heard the quote: "it's not to the swift or the strong but to the wise."

How well do you fight?

A group of powerful men in swords and metal armor is no match for a war tank. They might look cool and their helmets would sell on ebay for a bunch of money but they are in two different games. It's not even fair.

Here's how to know if you're fighting with wisdom or if you're fighting dumb.

How well do you fight when you have a problem with a partner or someone on your team? To pick against them would be wrong. You're not fighting against them, you're fighting for agreement. You're fighting for transparency. And you're fighting to ensure the future success of your communication and teamwork.

Dumb Fighting.Internet flights that you have no context about.When you're constantly fighting against something. People like to be rebels, but a rebel without a cause is just sad. What are we actually fighting for?The fight never ends—even after the issue is dealt with, you're still shadow boxing and talking about it.

Smart Fighting.There's always a resolve.You understand that you're qualified to jump in the ring. There's nothing like watching someone who's ignorant jump into a conversation battle they know nothing about.You hug at the end. The best fights end with a hug.You fight with your emotions intact. Losing it emotionally always effects your ability to think and articulate.

Fight wise. And fight smart. Because every day is a fight.

Mayweather vs. McGregor is fascinating on many levels. If you’re interested to learn more, read about the largest grossing fight in history.

You can't always help what happens to you, but you can help what happens in you. I was spending time with a good friend the other day and asked how she had been doing. She told me a fascinating story about how she realized that she didn’t like being around people with...

]]>You can't always help what happens to you, but you can help what happens in you. I was spending time with a good friend the other day and asked how she had been doing. She told me a fascinating story about how she realized that she didn’t like being around people with...

You can't always help what happens to you, but you can help what happens in you.

I was spending time with a good friend the other day and asked how she had been doing. She told me a fascinating story about how she realized that she didn’t like being around people with bad attitudes. But the most intriguing thing about her story was that she realized this because she was notorious for her bad attitude! One day, when she encountered someone who also had a bad attitude, she couldn’t stand to be around that person. So she decided to change.

It was like a lightbulb went off in her life. And she began to work on her attitude.

Attitude is a choice.

Attitude is felt by those around you. You’re not the only one who feels your attitude.

The 5-star luxury hotel brand, Four Seasons says that they hire for attitude, then teach skills.

I once heard a brilliant story that illustrated how attitude can set the trajectory of your life…

A man went into an interview and was handed the company’s latest annual report. He then was shown a seat and said they would be with him in about 15 minutes or so.

There were other people there also waiting for an interview who looked quite disgruntled for having to wait.

“Perfect,” thought the man to himself, “fifteen minutes will give me plenty of time to read through this report…"

As he began to read the company report, he noticed a small paragraph inserted on the second page that read, “If you’re reading this, STOP, get up, and show the receptionist this paragraph…"

The man was granted an interview immediately. No one else had seen that small paragraph because they didn’t read through the company report with eyes to see. They either didn’t read the report or skimmed read it.

John Maxwell said, "People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.”

"An opportunity is not an opportunity when it takes you away from your plan.” It's the get rich quick scheme. It's the well we just stumbled on this and maybe we should pursue it. Just because the train could...

]]>"An opportunity is not an opportunity when it takes you away from your plan.” It's the get rich quick scheme. It's the well we just stumbled on this and maybe we should pursue it. Just because the train could...

"An opportunity is not an opportunity when it takes you away from your plan.” —Pamela Grow

It's the get rich quick scheme.

It's the well we just stumbled on this and maybe we should pursue it.

Just because the train could make the stop doesn't mean it should. A train stopping when it's not planned is either a late train or a derailed one.

Here's something that's not sexy: have a plan and work that plan with focus and energy.

That path will lead you to success. You must learn to recognize opportunities that fit your focus and ones that don't. A good strategy executed well leads you to long-term success.

Shun opportunities that will cause you to deviate from your plan and strategy.

The great thing about this kind of focus is that when an opportunity is available that fits your plan, you're ready to execute it right away. And that's a win-win.

I took my family to a blueberry farm the other day and I couldn’t help but think about the importance of having a clear vision. We all know having vision is important, but often we fail to make the vision clear to the rest of our team. As my...

]]>I took my family to a blueberry farm the other day and I couldn’t help but think about the importance of having a clear vision. We all know having vision is important, but often we fail to make the vision clear to the rest of our team. As my...

I took my family to a blueberry farm the other day and I couldn’t help but think about the importance of having a clear vision.

We all know having vision is important, but often we fail to make the vision clear to the rest of our team.

As my young children were walking through the rows and rows of blueberries, MY vision was to fill as many buckets as we could.

My mouth was watering thinking of the delectable treats we would create with all of these wild berries—muffins, pancakes, fruit smoothies, and more. Yet, the progress was slow due to the rapid inhalation of the berries by all of my kids.

By the time we would pick a handful of berries, they’d be straight into their mouths. So I began to cast vision. I started by painting a beautiful culinary picture. Imagine the warm, fluffy, blueberry muffins coming out of the oven! We’ll put delicious butter on them and then sit down with a piping, hot mug of tea and enjoy our creations.

But it was a little too late, the tikes were stuffed with berries and now they were desiring to rest and stop working.

Needless to say, we picked enough berries to last us a few days—but my expectation of berries for months was too lofty for this particular outing.

How are you framing your vision for your team?

Can everyone state the vision that you’re all working towards? Or is it a lofty expectation stuck in your head and not becoming a reality like you had hoped?

"So we believe that the key to successful relationships between founders and their VCs is one simple rule: No Surprises.” Surprise! That’s the worst feeling. No one wants to...

]]>"So we believe that the key to successful relationships between founders and their VCs is one simple rule: No Surprises.” Surprise! That’s the worst feeling. No one wants to...

"So we believe that the key to successful relationships between founders and their VCs is one simple rule: No Surprises.” via Satya Patel

Surprise! That’s the worst feeling. No one wants to get married and wake up the next day with a massive surprise on their hands. That sort of scenario has happened before—think Jacob & Leah in Genesis. It’s the kind of stuff romantic comedies are made of.

But in business, it’s something that has to be clarified and intentionally ironed out before the fact. The best investors will tell you this. Be honest. Be open. And no surprises.

The above quote comes from growing and well-known startup investors in Silicon Valley. They continue by saying,"And the application of that rule starts well before a formal partnership is formed between VCs and a founding team.”

No one wants to start a business and then immediately be surprised by their partners, co-founder, vendors, or customers. You want to know what you’re getting yourself into.

Doing business in Africa will always bring surprises. The key is to head those off at the pass and call them out as soon as possible. And ideally before they ever occur.

What guarantees does your business have? How do I know you can do what you say you can? This is a problem for businesses small or large. The best ones are up front about the guarantees...

]]>What guarantees does your business have? How do I know you can do what you say you can? This is a problem for businesses small or large. The best ones are up front about the guarantees...

What guarantees does your business have? How do I know you can do what you say you can?

This is a problem for businesses small or large. The best ones are up front about the guarantees.

Elon Musk recently said he can solve the electricity issues in Western Australia in 100 days or else it's free. A wise person only makes that claim if he knows he can pull it off.

Which means, Musk had reverse engineered the entire problem from start to finish and knew that his company/team could do it.

So he made the guarantee.

Part of the problem of doing business in Africa is that we don't have solid guarantees from our environment.

We're not sure if we'll get the license to conduct business.

We're not sure if we'll be treated fairly by the revenue authorities.

We're not confident if we can trust the guarantees of our supplies, vendors, and partners.

It's a domino effect. One broken guarantee leads to a systemic breakdown.

How do you reverse this curse? I think it comes from an internal belief and resolve that you will only make guarantees that you can keep. Then you build trust with the people you work with and transact with.

Over time, you transfer your culture deliberately and intentionally that when a guarantee is spoken, it's then written, agreed upon, and fulfilled.

Those types of guarantees are ones that you can build a solid foundation on.

A few questions for you today:

Can people trust your guarantees?

Do you know someone who’s guarantee is as good as gold? Why do you trust them & how can you emulate their solid trust?

When the Illegitimate Becomes the Legitimate. This is every day life for a Zimbabwean. The Black Market has become normal. It’s called the Informal Market because it’s not categorized or able to be tracked by the government and its revenue authority. Yet, the Black Market is now how every day...

]]>When the Illegitimate Becomes the Legitimate. This is every day life for a Zimbabwean. The Black Market has become normal. It’s called the Informal Market because it’s not categorized or able to be tracked by the government and its revenue authority. Yet, the Black Market is now how every day...

It’s that time again for our quarterly review. For those new to our tribe, we write these updates every few months to show you what we’ve been working on.

The disclaimer: One of our guiding principles that we seek to implement as a group is transparency. As we work with entrepreneurs and their companies, and build companies of our own, we think it’s important to inform you about what we’re working on, as well as how it’s going. At the end of each Quarter, we’ve written reviews showcasing what projects we’re working on and the status of those. If you’ve followed closely, you’ve noticed that some projects went very well and some have flat-out failed. We think that’s part of it and we’re not going to hide those stories from you, no matter how failure makes us feel in our personal lives (read more about our thoughts on fostering failure here and here and here and here).

Due to our growing portfolio and list of things our team is cooking up, we’ll give you updates on the things that have had movement this quarter. If no movement, then you won’t see it in the list. For a full list on the projects we have going, click here. So for example, we built The Basement almost four years ago, it’s the first modern youth hall in Zimbabwe. There’s not much to update you on with a physical building space other than it’s still runs, hosts weekly events, and is cashflow positive. So we’ll file that in a list of projects on our site.

Ok enough of that…

So here is our 2017 Quarter 2 report. Enjoy!

When the Illegitimate Becomes the Legitimate

This is every day life for a Zimbabwean. The Black Market has become normal. It’s called the Informal Market because it’s not categorized or able to be tracked by the government and its revenue authority. Yet, the Black Market is now how every day life functions here. Hence the government’s shift from a cash-based economy to full e-currency.

The black market is, in fact, both a barometer and a checks-and-balances system for the official market.

The significance here is that when a government corrupts its official market, a black market arises in equal measure to recreate a “free” market. Its very illegality assures that it remains free of regulations and functions effectively.

The average man joins the black market when food for the family and fuel for mobility are at stake.

"Governments will always oppress their minions if they can. The greater the pressure, the sooner the minions create a solution.” To read more about that, click here.

The irony is when the same men writing the laws use the informal market to feed their families at night. That’s when you know the illegitimate has become the legitimate.

Now for a few business updates.

CMEDIA

It felt like the 2nd quarter hummed by for CMedia. We were nominated for some awards and won a few Ngoma Awards which are granted from DSTV. These awards were for our work done for Econet as well as the Higher Life Foundation. We never do campaigns and stories for awards, but our goal is to be so excellent that a by-product of our work is that it’s award winning quality.

We closed a project with the UN, and have a few larger projects in the queue, which we’re excited about. In May, we also had the privilege of live broadcasting the Stadium Worship event in Harare. Our broadcast was viewed by millions of homes across satellite TV and the internet!

Leading into Q3, we're pursuing external accounts and refreshing our branding to expand our reach into South Africa.

PITCH NIGHTS

Our open sourced plans are rolling through. We plan to make this a gift to local communities across Africa.

HEALING TEAM

The project kicked off in May in partnership with Oral Roberts University (ORU)—our alma mater. This vision showcases a medium-term development plan with long-term success metrics (data, best research, testing, implementation, scaling). We had 25 students, professors, and alumni in Zimbabwe working in a local slum.

The goal is to bring qualitative research data to our efforts with church and humanitarian work. After 5 years, we aim to show transformation in people’s lives from our efforts, and use data to prove our findings.

This project will be successful if we can create a solution to one of the many problems these people face in daily life and then scale that solution to the surrounding neighborhoods and communities in Zimbabwe.

HOUSING PROJECT

After a handful of years planning and developing, we broke ground on a new middle-income housing development in a nearby suburb of Harare. This plot will have around 350 homes, filling a much needed sector of the housing market where many middle-income houses are not being built fast enough for the local demand.

INVESTMENT CONVERSATIONS

We’ve had a consistent uptake on local investment conversations, predominately in the tech space. There are a number of entrepreneur tandems and teams in Zimbabwe that are seeking to solve social money issues since everyone in the nation has that problem. E-commerce is still a weak point in the nation (non-existent) and we’re interested in chatting with teams that are solving this problem. These conversations are exciting but also slow going as the difficult environment causes many hurdles to jump over before having a viable proof of concept. This result forces us to have many irons in the fire on these deals because they take a long time to develop and often fall through regarding timing. But we’re hopeful for a few of these rockstar teams to be able to come up with compelling and scalable solutions.

RESOURCING & CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

If you haven’t heard our podcast, then click here and give it a listen. Every Tuesday, Tommy delivers a compelling talk on topics ranging from efficient business practices to creating company culture within your teams.

We’ve also had the opportunity to speak and train leaders in places like Rwanda, Switzerland, South Africa, and of course Zimbabwe in Q2.

A CLOSING THOUGHT

Cash has been absolutely obliterated. It doesn’t exist anywhere. Because cash is so hard to come by, it takes six separate people to pay one invoice. Everyone owes everyone. In this kind of environment, trust and relationships help, but they also don’t solve the problem. It’s systemic and the culture here continues to look to next year. “2018 is just around the corner…” is a common phrase to hear in conversations.

But how can you live life constantly running from the past crisis and looking forward to next year? An environment where 95% of people are formally unemployed is not a place you would expect to find hope and expectancy. Yet, there’s a remnant of faithful people here working hard each day, believing for a better life for their family, and striving to make local changes for the betterment of their communities.

It’s these people that keep us motivated and passionate to see things change—even if it’s just incremental. There’s a group of people that are serious, driven, and focused on becoming who God has made them to be and changing the environment around them.

It's harder to lead average. It's easier to lead world class. Excellent is easier to maintain than average. Here's why. One word: momentum. When something is crushed out of the park, the release button gives you sleepless nights of excitement...

]]>It's harder to lead average. It's easier to lead world class. Excellent is easier to maintain than average. Here's why. One word: momentum. When something is crushed out of the park, the release button gives you sleepless nights of excitement...

It's harder to lead average. It's easier to lead world class.

Excellent is easier to maintain than average.

Here's why. One word: momentum.

When something is crushed out of the park, the release button gives you sleepless nights of excitement. The early mornings are filled with carryover momentum. Possibilities loom around you ever hour. The team knows they're part of something excellent and their wives and fiancés know it too.

"We're part of changing the world. The long hours, the hard days, the tough conversations are all worth it."

When its average, the luxury of momentum falls away like a 3-star motel. The mornings are a drag. Questions like, "Is this worth it?" or "Man, not sure if there's something better I could be doing," plague the office. We're part of the rat race. Weekend hangouts are the thrill, and the fiancé or friends question why you do what you do for a living.

The coffee is accustomed to taking off the (average) edge of what's in front of you.

Mustering inspiration for an average project is like painting a government building and trying to be excited about it.

Do it like a world class artisan. Do it like heaven is watching. Do it like it's the greatest opportunity in the world. If you have the attitude of world class, it doesn't matter what you do—it's got momentum.

They're going to give your business or your ice cream shop or your new app a try. They know all too well what dodgy looks like. They smell lack of authenticity like sharks smell blood. They want a quick reason to exit a store or a conversation. A reason to say...

]]>They're going to give your business or your ice cream shop or your new app a try. They know all too well what dodgy looks like. They smell lack of authenticity like sharks smell blood. They want a quick reason to exit a store or a conversation. A reason to say...

They're going to give your business or your ice cream shop or your new app a try.

They know all too well what dodgy looks like.

They smell lack of authenticity like sharks smell blood.

They want a quick reason to exit a store or a conversation. A reason to say, "I tried it and it didn't work.”

They know when a smile isn't genuine and when a hand shake is forced.

They know when the atmosphere resembles the "Meh" emoji and when no thought went into it.

They're creatures of habit and if they venture out into something new, they're not looking past the "work in progress” sign. Or the "please bear with us while we work on ourselves" faces at the new product launch.

If they download your app, they're sensitive if it doesn't work the way they want it to. And if their fears are fulfilled, then they're out.

If they walk into your new store, they're comparing it with others that have been around for decades—the places they're comfortable going to.

Most people I meet regarding a new product (or vision) say, "I was skeptical at first, but now that you've shown me the map and how it works, I'm in.”

They NEVER tell me, "You had me at hello." That's romance, not business.

When I meet people who are working on something grand and progressive, the summary they give might be intriguing, but I'm looking for the holes, and I'm definitely not convinced until I see the way it works.

It's not about the potential, it's about the current fireworks. If you weren't ready, why did you come to me? If you were still fixing things that are essential to the execution of your business, why did you open?

The THEY I’m talking about is the new generation of customer and they are looking for reasons why they can't connect and why they don't feel your vibe.

This might be a little extreme, but in reality, if someone tries it once and it doesn't ring in their hearts, to get them back again is almost impossible.

There are so many options out there. You have to nail it the first time.

Ideas are not scarce objects. Growing up, if you shared a part of your lunch with a friend at school, you got less. Perhaps you gained more of a friendship and forged an alliance in the schoolyard, but you actually got less of the sandwich at lunch. That was a big thing for me growing...

]]>Ideas are not scarce objects. Growing up, if you shared a part of your lunch with a friend at school, you got less. Perhaps you gained more of a friendship and forged an alliance in the schoolyard, but you actually got less of the sandwich at lunch. That was a big thing for me growing...

Ideas are not scarce objects.

Growing up, if you shared a part of your lunch with a friend at school, you got less. Perhaps you gained more of a friendship and forged an alliance in the schoolyard, but you actually got less of the sandwich at lunch. That was a big thing for me growing up. I didn’t want less of my sandwich.

I still don’t like it when people come in and sniper the last bite of my food. Be clear about what you want and then let’s make a deal from the beginning, I don’t like the last bite takeover maneuvers. My wife loves that maneuver.

But I digress from my point here...

Ideas aren’t this way. When you share an idea with someone else, the idea has the power to grow and evolve. We’ve written about this before, but ideas shared in a in a collaborative environment are like an oven. You’re not eating from the same pie, you’re manufacturing more.

There’s an interesting TED Talk by Paul Romer called “Why the world needs charter cities.”

The talk discusses the ideas of collaboration regarding new rules so cities can progress, break out of poverty, and eventually shape their nation. It’s thought provoking—you should watch it when you have 20 minutes.

Speaking about the power of ideas, Romer says, "We can share ideas with other people, and when they discover them, they share with us. It's not like scarce objects, where sharing means we each get less. When we share ideas we all get more...If we can keep innovating on our space of rules, and particularly innovate in the sense of coming up with rules for changing rules, so we don't get stuck with bad rules, then we can keep moving progress forward and truly make the world a better place."

This is like the idea of being the coach and not the referee. In society, we all need rules to change and create new rules, so we end up with better rules.

Are you an idea innovator and collaborator? Or are you idea squasher and squanderer?

"When we share ideas, we all get more."

]]>http://emergingideas.com/expanding-ideasWhat I Would Do If I Were Unemployed?http://emergingideas.com/what-i-would-do-if-i-were-unemployedThu, 06 Jul 2017 05:00:00 GMTpitch@emergingideas.comTim & Tommy

Unemployment. This is an epidemic globally, not just in Africa. Zimbabwe has very little formal employment these days. The going statistic being thrown around locally is 95% unemployment. Sure, everyone’s hustling and looking for that next dollar, but they...

]]>Unemployment. This is an epidemic globally, not just in Africa. Zimbabwe has very little formal employment these days. The going statistic being thrown around locally is 95% unemployment. Sure, everyone’s hustling and looking for that next dollar, but they...

Unemployment. This is an epidemic globally, not just in Africa.

Zimbabwe has very little formal employment these days. The going statistic being thrown around locally is 95% unemployment. Sure, everyone’s hustling and looking for that next dollar, but they’re not formally employed. They may be educated, but not employed.

In the USA, they have 6.8 million people without jobs. Yet there are 6 million jobs available on the national market! What? Why can’t they just sync up the unemployed who are seeking a job and those that are needing to hire?

Skills. You ain’t got ‘em.

Education is great. It helps you learn about the world and great education teaches you how to learn, which is critical. Learning how to learn is the best.

But it doesn’t give you skills. You have to go get those on your own. And, guess what, that’s why there’s an unemployment problem globally—people don’t have skills. Or at least, they don’t have the right ones.

We had a water company we were working on a few years back. We were given the rights to this solution for the nation of Zimbabwe. It was exciting and single-handedly could have alleviated water problems in many of the rural areas in the country.

You want to know why we couldn’t get the project off of the ground? No one had the skills to implement. And, no one was willing to go and get trained for 6 to 9 months to then come back and implement their newfound skillsets.

It’s sad, but so true.

There are so many skills that if you took the time to search online, watch a few videos, read a book, or ask someone down the street to show you, you’d be amazed at how you could develop in life.

Formal employment isn’t necessary to succeed in life. Knowing how to learn and being willing to learn new skills is.

Do you have skills?

Our top entrepreneurs that we work with are all self-taught. They taught themselves many things like:

Knowledge is rapidly expanding in the world today. You can’t keep up. No one can. But what you can do, is teach yourself how to learn. And then chase something that interests you and is beneficial to others.

A few things that if you learned today, you could be tomorrow’s next success story:

welding—manufacturing in Africa is much needed

computer coding—designers and coders are much needed

bioscience—if you studied chemistry or biology in school, consider learning this

If you’re a designer and you interview with Google for a job, you’ll be assessed based on your creativity and problem solving on the fly. They’re known for asking design problems for you to solve in the interview. Like the 1,000 Floor Elevator...

]]>If you’re a designer and you interview with Google for a job, you’ll be assessed based on your creativity and problem solving on the fly. They’re known for asking design problems for you to solve in the interview. Like the 1,000 Floor Elevator...

If you’re a designer and you interview with Google for a job, you’ll be assessed based on your creativity and problem solving on the fly.

They’re known for asking design problems for you to solve in the interview.

Like the 1,000 Floor Elevator.

How would you design a 1,000 floor elevator?

The tallest building in the world right now has 163 above ground floors. So 1,000 floors is way outside of anything feasible currently.

But for the sake of the exercise, how would you design it? Think about it…

There have been a lot of fantastic answers to this problem. You can google some. Everything from the design of the floor to smell of the air in the hoisted box.

A lot of designers create a beautiful metal box that can hold 50 passengers with a TV, some nice ventilation, floor design, and more frills.

The problem is, the majority of people start trying to solve this problem before actually defining the problem.

For example:

What’s the purpose of the elevator?

Is it supposed to carry people? If so, how many?

How many stops is it supposed to have?

What if the sole purpose of the elevator was to take one person to the International Space Station? You would never know if you didn’t define the purpose from the start.

It’s hard to accomplish something great. But even a momentous task can be achieved when you and your team know the purpose. And then you break the task down into bite-sized pieces.

The Lean Startup Model. One of the main things we love about this method is that it helps you avoid spending months and months building something that isn't tested. Your goal should be to get into the market and test, then create your product around what your paying customers need...

]]>The Lean Startup Model. One of the main things we love about this method is that it helps you avoid spending months and months building something that isn't tested. Your goal should be to get into the market and test, then create your product around what your paying customers need...

Then develop those learning points into your next iteration OR change your idea slightly/completely (called a pivot)

One of the main things we love about this method is that it helps you avoid spending months and months building something that isn't tested. Your goal should be to get into the market and test, then create your product around what your paying customers need.

The key here is: “Would you pay $XYZ per month if I could solve this problem for you?” Then show your potential customer what you’re working on. Listen to them. See if the need is really valid or not.

If they’re excited about it, stay in touch with them and get their commitment to buy from you when you solve their problem.

We get a lot of requests every week from African entrepreneurs who have brilliant ideas. The majority of these ideas are untested. For us to get involved (or for any future partner, investor, supplier), we need to see traction on the ground.

Have you tested a hypothesis and had it validated?

Are you beginning to onboard customers quickly?

Are revenues flowing in?

Do you have any partnerships lined up?

Can you show specific traction online (orders, likes, shares)?

Even if these results are small scale, but you can prove the track record is strong and the sales are growing, then those are all positive things.

Pick a piece of the business you're going to own and dominate, then showcase that on a micro level and begin to test and scale it out systematically.

Investors love to see those systems and those thought processes laid out.

Here’s a quick example with easy math:

We tested our idea and now have 100 paying customers monthly, which equals $1,000 in gross profits. We know that it costs us $1.25 in FB ads to generate a new inquiry, and then an additional $1.75 to follow-up and close the sale. Our average customer is staying with us minimum 9 months…

That type of explanation, with the lean model (testing everything and learning from it) will put you on a road to success in your business.

10 years ago, a call to Zimbabwe was $2.79/minute from the States. The communication gap was massive and trying to run a global business from a landlocked country in Africa was unthinkable. We know 'cause we did it. Today, change is accelerating. And what was fast last year is...

]]>10 years ago, a call to Zimbabwe was $2.79/minute from the States. The communication gap was massive and trying to run a global business from a landlocked country in Africa was unthinkable. We know 'cause we did it. Today, change is accelerating. And what was fast last year is...

10 years ago, a call to Zimbabwe was $2.79/minute from the States. The communication gap was massive and trying to run a global business from a landlocked country in Africa was unthinkable.

We know 'cause we did it.

Today, change is accelerating. And what was fast last year is no longer fast today. Fast meets faster. Think about internet speeds in your nation. Night and day in a short period of time.

Moore’s law is an observation in computer engineering. It states that the number of transistors in a dense circuit doubles approximately every two years. In other words, things are rapidly changing, and it’s only accelerating.

Think about those floppy disks that used to hold a few megabytes if you were lucky. Fast forward a few years, and the first generation iPods that had 5 gigabytes of storage.

Now people are buying terabyte hard drives to store their photos on.

No one would have thought that self-driving cars were a thing of reality. That was only science fiction a few years ago. Now, new cars rolling off the assembly line have some of those safety features built in.

This is important for you to know because the things that are problems in your life today are multi-billion dollar business ideas tomorrow (energy, biology, artificial intelligence, infrastructure).

The technology driven beggar. Beggars on every street are suffering. Not just because they don't have jobs, but because now the country is moving to paperless. So the beggars are side swiped. They need point of sale (POS) machines or ecocash. Imagine...

]]>The technology driven beggar. Beggars on every street are suffering. Not just because they don't have jobs, but because now the country is moving to paperless. So the beggars are side swiped. They need point of sale (POS) machines or ecocash. Imagine...

The technology driven beggar

Beggars on every street are suffering. Not just because they don't have jobs, but because now the country is moving to paperless. So the beggars are side swiped.

They need point of sale (POS) machines or ecocash.

Imagine wiring money or swiping a POS or Square machine to donate to a beggar. It's either that, or the people getting their income from loose change in vehicles will be forced to find something else to do...

Imagine an NGO that focused on helping beggars beg efficiently.

No cash? No problem! We've got a machine that accepts donations right here.

I wonder if that's a worthy cause…

Would you give to a beggar who has made it simpler to give to him through technology?

If everything goes electronic, what do beggars do? There's an estimated 1.6 million street children and beggars on the streets of Zimbabwe and they are feeling the cash crunch.

It's funny, but then it's not. I get stopped at every street corner and I'm giving less than I used to because I have less physical cash on me.

They've got to be feeling the crunch. And because of the economy, the beggars aren't going away, so what's the next step?

By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a cash surplus of $60 million (the modern day equivalent of $1.35 billion). The price of the Model T, Ford’s signature product, had been cut over the years, yet the wages of the employees had increased dramatically, and these generous investments had been publicized. Two brothers...

]]>By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a cash surplus of $60 million (the modern day equivalent of $1.35 billion). The price of the Model T, Ford’s signature product, had been cut over the years, yet the wages of the employees had increased dramatically, and these generous investments had been publicized. Two brothers...

By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a cash surplus of $60 million (the modern day equivalent of $1.35 billion). The price of the Model T, Ford’s signature product, had been cut over the years, yet the wages of the employees had increased dramatically, and these generous investments had been publicized. Two brothers, John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge, owned 10% of Ford’s company.

They had been the manufacturers of the main chassis for the Model T for a dozen years. They decided to challenge Ford’s idea of investing these surplus funds into the infrastructure of the company and giving raises to the employees.

They argued, it’s a business, not a charity. "The Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford could not lower consumer prices and raise employee salaries.”

The court ruled that the primary focus of a for-profit business is to profit the shareholders first. However, this has been extrapolated as a case that is the rule for profit maximization and wealth creation. Rather than a single case that was ruled on over 100 years ago.

This true story is where we get the idea that business profits are for the shareholders first—not the partners, not the customers, not the employees, not the community. But solely for the shareholders.

"The myth that profit maximization is the sole purpose of business has done enormous damage to the reputation of capitalism and the legitimacy of business in society,” wrote John Mackey, founder and president of Whole Foods Market. “We need to recapture the narrative and restore it to its true essence: that the purpose of business is to improve our lives and to create value for stakeholders.”

(This quote is ironic in light of the recent sale of Whole Foods to Amazon, but we’ll hold off on judgment until we see what their vision is).

The end of the story is interesting. Ford threatened to start a rival competitor to be able to obtain complete ownership. But ended up, the Dodge brothers used their $1.9 million ($42.5 million today) earnings from the settlement to continue to fund their own booming business, Dodge Brothers Company.

This case is only one. Contrary to myth, it's not the rule. Boards, committees, executives, and managers have to make decisions that favor the stakeholders, but that doesn’t mean their decisions have to slight employees and communities in return. There can be a double-bottom line more often than not.

[Sidenote, when the Dodge brothers agreed to manufacture the frames for Henry Ford in 1903, they floated him $10,000 ($250k today) in inventory. That was converted into stock, which equaled 10% of Ford Motor Company. They later sold that stock in 1919 for $25 million, which is the equivalent of over $350 million today. How’s that for a great investment!]

There can be many roles of great business. What’s yours?

Create value for stakeholders.

Create meaningful employment for thousands.

Provide healthy and high-quality food for customers.

Serve communities.

Make a ton of money for yourself.

Solve local problems.

Change the world.

Know your roles. Recruit the right partners. And go change your part of the world.

Occam’s Razor is a problem-solving principle that says, "simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.” This principle is based on the notion that simplicity equals perfection. It is a guide or a suggestion—that states that when given two explanations for the same thing, the simpler one is usually...

]]>Occam’s Razor is a problem-solving principle that says, "simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.” This principle is based on the notion that simplicity equals perfection. It is a guide or a suggestion—that states that when given two explanations for the same thing, the simpler one is usually...

Occam’s Razor is a problem-solving principle that says, "simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.”

Occam's razor is based on the notion that simplicity equals perfection. It is a guide or a suggestion—that states that when given two explanations for the same thing, the simpler one is usually the correct one.

Then you have Benford’s law, which states in many naturally occurring numbers, the leading significant digit is likely to be small.

Next is the 10/90 Gap that states that only 10% of worldwide medical resources are spent in countries that have 90% of all preventable deaths worldwide. African startups that target this gap could be quite successful in the coming years.

Next is the 1% Rule, which states that in Internet culture, only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk.

Finally, you have Pareto’s Principle (also known as the 80/20 Rule or the Law of the Few). This principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

In other words, 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. The original observation was made in Italy’s land ownership. Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population.

A Few Examples

It’s well known by Project Managers that 20 percent of work (usually the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of the time and resources. You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything from the science of management to the sciences of the physical world around us.

And 20% of your workers will cause 80% of your problems, while another 20 percent of your personnel will deliver 80% of your entire production. The formula appears to work in both directions.

Or 80% of your problems come from 20% of your employees.

What’s the point?

Stay Focused. And focus on what you must do, not what you can do.

A real life case study can be seen in the worldwide juggernaut McDonald’s. 87% of McDonald’s revenues were hamburgers, fries, and drinks. That’s it.

They were an overnight sensation 30 years in the making. Why? Because they focused on what was producing the results.

Too often in the startup world, we try to build too many things too quickly. When you really should be focused on solving the 20% of problems that will give you 80% of results.

In Africa, this number may be exponential. Because to solve any problem, it takes solving half a dozen smaller ones along the way.

There are a lot of focus principles out there. None of them matter unless you actually focus and apply them.

Some workplace productivity questions to ask yourself and your team today:

How often do you check your communication platform (email, WhatsApp, messaging)? Are you so focused on hitting the dopamine responders that you don’t actually get anything done? Everyone’s communication, but accomplishing nothing.

What are the 20% of things that produce more results in your day to day work? If you don’t know, discuss which problems you are given the freedom to drop versus which ones you must focus on. Do those priorities need to shift?

Where does the bulk of your revenue come from? Can you focus on that 20% output?

Where do the bulk of your problems come from? Can you fire that person/employee/client/customer? Or can you focus as a team and solve that problem?

I received a message from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), "Dear Customer, Our apologies, ZESA prepaid electricity tokens are currently unavailable due to system challenges. We will advise once normal services are restored." These are the daily reminders that...

]]>I received a message from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), "Dear Customer, Our apologies, ZESA prepaid electricity tokens are currently unavailable due to system challenges. We will advise once normal services are restored." These are the daily reminders that...

I received a message from the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), "Dear Customer, Our apologies, ZESA prepaid electricity tokens are currently unavailable due to system challenges. We will advise once normal services are restored."

These are the daily reminders that running a business in Zimbabwe is not easy. You can’t take anything for granted. And even when you do have cash to pay your bills, the “systems are down.” Notice how they don’t state what the challenges are, just we all have challenges, so you have to take our word for it—we’re having challenges too.

No power. No electricity. It’s hard to run a business with consistency when the environment you’re operating in is so predictably disastrous. Backup plans come into place, but even your backups don’t work sometimes. It’s part of the ebb and flow of doing business here.

And sometimes, when there’s no electricity, the weekend comes early.

Be flexible. Be adaptable. And don’t let the stupid problems in this country keep you disheartened. The playing field is level because we’re all having our challenges, even the guys at the top. Yes, even the top.

ZESA doesn’t play favourites when their system shuts down. We all lose power.

Everything you do is marketing. Disruptive marketers would agree with David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard, who said, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” What I love about marketing is that it’s a fine art of...

]]>Everything you do is marketing. Disruptive marketers would agree with David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard, who said, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” What I love about marketing is that it’s a fine art of...

Everything you do is marketing.

Disruptive marketers would agree with David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard, who said, “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.”

What I love about marketing is that it’s a fine art of listening to consumers and giving them what they want (or need). They often don’t know what they want consciously. You have to read between the lines. And when launching a product, especially one that doesn’t exist yet—speaking directly to the influencers who care is critical in terms of product marketing.

In general though, everything your company does has a component of marketing to it.

How you answer the phone...

Communicate in written form...

Follow-up with customers...

Solve their problems...

Give them great service...

All of these things say something about you, your company, and your brand. And that’s marketing. Taking who you are as a company and communicating it to the world.

Your marketing can be fun or stale. It’s your choice.

It can be relevant and engaging or just something we do. It’s your choice.

It can be full of hope and make your customers feel good. Or not. It’s up to you.

But the best kind of marketing tells a story, makes your customer the hero, and solves problems along the way. Every touchpoint in your business is an opportunity for marketing. How you package a shipment. How you design your website. The way that you communicate your business. All of it is important and it’s marketing—good or bad.

There’s a new wave of marketing that’s called Disruptive Marketing. It focuses on the experience a customer has with your organization. And this is what marketing is at its core—interacting with customers and helping solve their problems.

“You had me at hello.” If it’s true that people subconsciously judge a book by its cover, then the first impression is key when it comes to a potential new relationship. This is especially true when seeking investment, partners, or new customers. Contrary to many’s beliefs, the deal doesn’t start...

]]>“You had me at hello.” If it’s true that people subconsciously judge a book by its cover, then the first impression is key when it comes to a potential new relationship. This is especially true when seeking investment, partners, or new customers. Contrary to many’s beliefs, the deal doesn’t start...

“You had me at hello.” —quote from the movie Jerry Maguire

If it’s true that people subconsciously judge a book by its cover, then the first impression is key when it comes to a potential new relationship. This is especially true when seeking investment, partners, or new customers.

Contrary to many’s beliefs, the deal doesn’t start when you sit down to make the ask or negotiate the terms. Oh no, it starts long before that. And great negotiators and dealmakers know this.

The Set Up

“That was the easiest deal I ever did…” said one of our clients a few years ago. “I have never seen someone close a deal on the first conversation! How did you do it?”

What our friend didn’t know, was that his first conversation was our twentieth. We had built relationships, developed reputation, cultivated friendships, learned about his particular business, fielded initial questions and information, then and only then did we make the introduction to our friend.

They closed several hundred thousand dollars in that investment. From what seemed like one conversation.

Some keys to setting someone up to win:

Relationship development. Getting to know the investors/partners/client you’re working with and what they are looking for to be successful.

Keeping them involved in what you’re working on. This doesn’t mean an email or phone call every week, but depending on that nature of your business, perhaps a little hello every few months and something significant once or twice a year.

Giving enough info to keep them interested without giving it all away. This is important. You don’t want to steal the pitcher’s thunder. You everyone to come to the table chomping at the bit to learn more about each other.

They both should think they other person is a rockstar. Don’t exaggerate or overstate who each person is, but honestly and genuinely share about who you’re introducing and why you want them to connect.

That’s how you set someone up to win. You frame the expectations in the room and set the appropriate guidelines. Then let the entrepreneur share his idea and allow the investors to learn more.

The entrepreneur still has to have the numbers and the proof of concept, but when you are set up to win—you’re running home from second base. Or you’re scoring tries against very few defenders.

What’s more important—creativity or knowledge? If you say knowledge…knowledge is power. Knowledge helps you combat ignorance. If you’re willing to admit you don’t know what you don’t know, then gaining more knowledge is empowering and exciting. But even with the world’s knowledge...

]]>What’s more important—creativity or knowledge? If you say knowledge…knowledge is power. Knowledge helps you combat ignorance. If you’re willing to admit you don’t know what you don’t know, then gaining more knowledge is empowering and exciting. But even with the world’s knowledge...

What’s more important—creativity or knowledge?

If you say knowledge…

knowledge is power.

knowledge helps you combat ignorance.

if you’re willing to admit you don’t know what you don’t know, then gaining more knowledge is empowering and exciting.

But even with the world’s knowledge, if you don’t know how to apply the facts you have, then you’re not going to be able to do much.

Albert Einstein, "Information is not knowledge."

If you say creativity…

Creativity finds a way to solve problems.

Creativity knows how to discover knowledge and new things.

Creativity harnesses curiosity and acts like a magnet to learning new things.

Knowledge is now doubling every 9 months. That means that what we know today may be vastly different or improved upon early next year.

Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”

Both are important, but when creating a team culture, we think creativity is more important than knowledge. You can always acquire the knowledge you need, but to implement, execute, and problem solve rapidly and effectively, then creativity trumps knowledge.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. According to Michael J Cohen’s recent article, "The Physicist Richard Feynman was famous as a student for redoing many of physics’ early experiments himself to build a foundational understanding of the field. By mastering these first principles, Feynman often saw things that...

]]>If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. According to Michael J Cohen’s recent article, "The Physicist Richard Feynman was famous as a student for redoing many of physics’ early experiments himself to build a foundational understanding of the field. By mastering these first principles, Feynman often saw things that...

"...simplify, simplify.” —Henry Thoreau

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

According to Michael J Cohen’s recent article, "The Physicist Richard Feynman was famous as a student for redoing many of physics’ early experiments himself to build a foundational understanding of the field. By mastering these first principles, Feynman often saw things that others did not in quantum mechanics, computing, and nuclear physics, earning him the Nobel Prize in 1965.”

Feynman obtained deep knowledge that allowed him to simplify his field.

Albert Einstein said that you can architect different levels of knowledge. He laid out the five levels of intellect like this:

Smart

Intelligent

Brilliant

Genius

Simplify

If it takes you an hour to get to the point of what it is you’re actually doing and solving, you must rethink how you communicate your idea. And perhaps, you need to study deeper so you can condense and communicate that in a simpler fashion.

Elon Musk is famous for taking complex problems and simplfying them so that his teams can solve these engineering feats of impossibility.

Cohen continues:

The seed of each idea was planted by calculating what physics dictates is possible, not extrapolating from the status-quo. This defined the arena of possibility using little more than high-school math.

Musk is trying to spread the word. He explained his thinking to Tesla’s shareholders as it applied to the design of the Gigafactory in 2016. Instead of extracting tiny gains in the design of the car (a highly-engineered product where most cost and material savings were squeezed out long ago), Musk turned his attention to the factory where he said the same amount of effort yielded an order of magnitude more results.

“Once you explain this to a first-rate engineer, the light bulb goes on,” said Musk. “Lots of engineers don’t realize this is possible. They think there’s like a wall. They’re basically operating according to these invisible walls and we’re in the process of explaining those walls don’t exist. And I think it’s going to be pretty amazing.”

Where do invisible walls exist in your current thinking?

Take those walls, study them and then begin to break them down.

That way you can communicate what you do simply. And solve “impossible" problems along the way.

Did you know that about half of all the bananas consumed worldwide come from the same tree? The exact same tree. It’s been cloned so many times that every banana is in the same family. This is a brilliant strategy as a mass marketer. Get your market to...

]]>Did you know that about half of all the bananas consumed worldwide come from the same tree? The exact same tree. It’s been cloned so many times that every banana is in the same family. This is a brilliant strategy as a mass marketer. Get your market to...

Did you know that “about half of all the bananas consumed worldwide come from the same tree?” (HT to Seth Godin for this idea).

The exact same tree. It’s been cloned so many times that every banana is in the same family.

This is a brilliant strategy as a mass marketer. Get your market to like a certain type or flavor, then scale it out and fulfill the need.

But what happens when something unforeseen comes and wipes out that type of tree? The rest of the crop is susceptible.

Seth writes, "Variation brings resilience and innovation and the chance to make a difference.”

In Africa, Chinese goods were exciting at first when they were the only option. But as the market has increased, cheap goods that don’t last long aren’t appealing.

The interesting thing about the banana story is that whoever made the banana plants and created the market is at a great advantage and has a lot of power. But just because every other banana on the market is the same, doesn’t mean you have to be.

We like unique. And for investors looking to find great entrepreneurs to back, they’re also looking for unique and not another, typical, African entrepreneur.

For a few years now, Tommy has conducted leadership and team culture training. At first it was on Wednesday mornings in Harare. Now it’s on Tuesdays. This led to some radio spots for a year or two on national radio and now we’ve taken some of the best of the best and put it into audio format on a new podcast...

]]>For a few years now, Tommy has conducted leadership and team culture training. At first it was on Wednesday mornings in Harare. Now it’s on Tuesdays. This led to some radio spots for a year or two on national radio and now we’ve taken some of the best of the best and put it into audio format on a new podcast...

For a few years now, Tommy has conducted leadership and team culture training. At first it was on Wednesday mornings in Harare. Now it’s on Tuesdays.

This led to some radio spots for a year or two on national radio and now we’ve taken some of the best of the best and put it into audio format on a new podcast.

This is a taste of our meetings, our pep talks, our brainstorms, and our chats over coffee.

How do you come up with a brilliant idea? Most of the ideas you’ll have are bad ideas. But it takes a bunch of bad ones to find a good one. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at generating ideas. Look for ideas in odd places. Everyone looks...

]]>How do you come up with a brilliant idea? Most of the ideas you’ll have are bad ideas. But it takes a bunch of bad ones to find a good one. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at generating ideas. Look for ideas in odd places. Everyone looks...

How do you come up with a brilliant idea?

Have lots of ideas

Most of the ideas you’ll have are bad ideas. But it takes a bunch of bad ones to find a good one. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at generating ideas.

Look for ideas in odd places.

Everyone looks for business ideas by reading business journals and newspapers. You’re not going to find your next big idea looking where everyone else is looking. Seek out creative idea hiding places.

Talk to a young person about what they like, what they’re interested in and playing with.

Talk to people in other industries than you have expertise and ask them what they’re reading and learning about.

Read white papers (like this one) and trade journals. This can often be boring cause it’s written without the pizzazz, but treasure lies at the forefront of a new discovery.

Procrastinate

What you don’t hear about are the amazing deals that went bad. You don’t have to jump into anything. Take your time. Sit still. The best time to do this is right after you had a mild success. Don’t be too hasty to jump back into things thinking you’re lucky streak is unstoppable.

Ask questions without fear of the consequences.

If a stupid question helps you learn something new or see it from a new angle, then ask it. The person you’re talking to might learn from you as well and then you’ll have a truly collaborative conversation.

Great ideas shun desperation.

When you’re desperate, it’s hard to come up with great ideas. If you’re desperate for cash, and you want to start selling stuff to make more cash, it’s really hard to have your ah-ha moment.

But if you’re working hard and making a living, then you can stumble into your idea as you apply the above principles. You can craft it and hone it over time. Be desperate for the new idea, but not with the motives of seeking overnight fame, success, and glory.

“Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos." When a ship is on the high seas at least three questions must be answered. Question number one: How do we keep the ship from sinking? Number two: How do we keep it from...

]]>“Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos." When a ship is on the high seas at least three questions must be answered. Question number one: How do we keep the ship from sinking? Number two: How do we keep it from...

“Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos." —Francis Ford Coppola

C.S. Lewis wrote that when a ship is on the high seas at least three questions must be answered:

Question number one: How do we keep the ship from sinking?

Number two: How do we keep it from bumping into other ships?

These two may be obvious but behind them lurks the most important one…

Number three: Why is the ship out there in the first place?

When you endeavor to change the world, your scale (or reach) and passion (or zeal) will bring with it chaos. That’s natural. But it’s only those that can answer question number three that emerge from that chaos with the vision, team, and result in tact.

Oh it’s no big deal, it was just a little typo. Oh it’s no big deal, I was only late a few minutes. Oh it’s no big deal, I rounded up and kept the change for myself. Oh it’s no big deal…Do the little things matter? A missing comma ignited a ten million dollar legal debate recently when the contract combined the last two actions of dairy delivery drivers. Because the clause was...

]]>Oh it’s no big deal, it was just a little typo. Oh it’s no big deal, I was only late a few minutes. Oh it’s no big deal, I rounded up and kept the change for myself. Oh it’s no big deal…Do the little things matter? A missing comma ignited a ten million dollar legal debate recently when the contract combined the last two actions of dairy delivery drivers. Because the clause was...

"Oxford comma is the world's most controversial punctuation mark.”

Oh it’s no big deal, it was just a little typo.

Oh it’s no big deal, I was only late a few minutes.

Oh it’s no big deal, I rounded up and kept the change for myself.

Oh it’s no big deal…

Do the little things matter?

A missing comma ignited a ten million dollar legal debate recently when the contract combined the last two actions of dairy delivery drivers. Because the clause was combined, the drivers sued and said they were not given overtime to conduct their distribution task.

If the comma had been there, they wouldn’t have ground for overtime pay.

The little things do matter.

The market shows us this. Look at the startup Grammarly. They use Artificial Intelligence to spell check your emails and proposals. They have millions of users now and just finished a $110 million VC round. People are wanting to automate their lack of grammar expertise.

The little things do matter.

Take our friends at SpaceX as an example. They had to delay the launch of one of their rockets a few years ago due to a micro defect in one of their welds. The last time they didn’t catch it, the rocket imploded on itself.

Have you ever had a hairline fracture in your wrist? Don’t tell me the little things don’t matter!

Ever forgot your girlfriend's birthday? That’s not a little thing, why are we even mentioning it!

Ever had a mosquito in your room while you're trying to sleep?

Our entire lives and ecosystems are full of little things that matter. They do matter.

Your business card.

Your deadlines & timeliness.

The culture of your company.

The way you answer the phone.

Your grammar in emails, promo materials, web content.

Your tweets & posts.

The person you hire to clean your office.

Your website.

The little things matter. Don’t be a control freak or a micromanager, but put value in the details.

What do Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey all have in common? They’re super rich! They’re super successful! Yes and yes. They also set aside an hour every day for deliberate...

]]>What do Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey all have in common? They’re super rich! They’re super successful! Yes and yes. They also set aside an hour every day for deliberate...

What do Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey all have in common?

They’re super rich! They’re super successful!

Yes and yes.

They also set aside an hour every day for deliberate practice or learning.

It’s that time again for our quarterly review. The Swamp of No Boundary. This is what it feels like to live and work in Zimbabwe today. In other words, there are no rules for anyone to trade on, so it makes it impossible to guarantee anything. And doing business with no guarantee is like trying to give a beautifully wrapped...

]]>It’s that time again for our quarterly review. The Swamp of No Boundary. This is what it feels like to live and work in Zimbabwe today. In other words, there are no rules for anyone to trade on, so it makes it impossible to guarantee anything. And doing business with no guarantee is like trying to give a beautifully wrapped...

It’s that time again for our quarterly review. For those new to our tribe, we write these updates every few months to show you what we’ve been working on.

The disclaimer: One of our guiding principles that we seek to implement as a group is transparency. As we work with entrepreneurs and their companies, and build companies of our own, we think it’s important to inform you about what we’re working on, as well as how it’s going. At the end of each Quarter, we’ve written reviews showcasing what projects we’re working on and the status of those. If you’ve followed closely, you’ve noticed that some projects went very well and some have flat-out failed. We think that’s part of it and we’re not going to hide those stories from you, no matter how failure makes us feel in our personal lives (read more about our thoughts on fostering failure here and here and here and here).

Due to our growing portfolio and list of things our team is cooking up, we’ll give you updates on the things that have had movement this quarter. If no movement, then you won’t see it in the list. For a full list on the projects we have going, click here. So for example, we built The Basement almost four years ago, it’s the first modern youth hall in Zimbabwe. There’s not much to update you on with a physical building space other than it’s still runs, hosts weekly events, and is cashflow positive. So we’ll file that in a list of projects on our site.

Ok enough of that…

So here is our 2017 Quarter 1 report. Enjoy!

The Swamp of No Boundary

This is what it feels like to live and work in Zimbabwe today. In other words, there are no rules for anyone to trade on, so it makes it impossible to guarantee anything. And doing business with no guarantee is like trying to give a beautifully wrapped gift package with no actual gift inside. It may be great to look at and give away, but there’s no substance to anything.

This causes a lot of problems for normal life. Because what’s normal? For many, this fact makes life difficult to cope with on a personal level and challenging to navigate which direction your ship is heading.

This is why it’s critical that your business doesn’t define you, but your character does. With few investments being made in this current market, those with strong vision and character are slowly and quietly positioning themselves for regional expansion, relational alliances, and hope that things will be different in the coming years.

Now for a few business updates.

COTRADE INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS

Cotrade keeps getting proof of transfers for new orders on new projects, but the proofs never actually get proven by the banks, and so it's a wheel full of potential, but it's just not spinning. The leadership is working tirelessly to expand their reach into the surrounding nations and there are a number of relationships proving optimistic about the solution. But entering into a new market while your current cashflows from the previous market are suffocatingly tight makes it difficult to make much headway. All it will take is for one stone to start rolling down the hill.

CMEDIA

CMedia has been ramping up their internship project with both international and local interns working on real projects. We've seen university students and recent graduates skyrocket their learning curve and repertoire because of hands on experience. We don't treat them like interns at all, but force them to swim in the deep end of the pool. The project plate is constantly full and this year we're looking to partner with a few global distribution companies, allowing us to really take the content creation conversation to all sides of the African map. This Quarter, we were nominated for a local NAMA award for 2016 work pieces, and the next Quarter is lining up to be full of love and new territory.

PITCH NIGHTS

We’re excited about this. It’s outgrown us and is wanting to fly. We’ve kept it under wraps for now, but in Q2, we’ll be open sourcing it! Any passionate and hungry startup community will be able to host a Pitch Night and get a template on how to launch it in their city, wherever they are in Africa. Be on the look out for the downloads and the website. The demands for Pitch Night are more than we can consult with or skype with, so we're giving it away.

HEALING TEAM

Collaboration between academic, business, professional, and nonprofit worlds. Hosting short term trips from abroad are great for vision casting, but not for long term development. We're pioneering with Oral Roberts University (ORU) for a new vision that will showcase a medium term development plan with long term success metrics (data, best research, testing, implementation, scaling). This kicks off May 2017.

HUMANITARIAN WORK

Medical shipments landed. Hope landed. Help landed. and now over 10,000 people will received the benefit. Who gets the credit? Probably no one, but all of these people get proper medical support and that's enough for us.

A Local Orphanage we support is now better maintained by the purchase of a bus and installment of border fence. The fence at Ivordale looks stunning. I imagine that it's challenging the nearby town to do more for their own security. The children had been secure in the past, but the boundary lines were areas of gray and there was no stopping the wanderers who felt like they wanted to drop by for a visit. Now that's sorted and the renovations of the orphanage have been completed.

RESOURCING & CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

We had a conversation and new relationship form with a top content exec in Africa. Discussed content and telling stories and narratives that move people to action. We want those actions to be positive and produce life in society.

Starting to focus on developing many of our own shows and script ideas for entertainment and resourcing of young people as they are making healthy life decisions. We’re also collaborating with a few local church movements to enhance local discipleship as young people are making decisions to follow Jesus Christ.

EDUCATE

Educate is the little engine that could. It's a ship in the ocean that is struck with perpetual storms, however the team is navigating the waves like champion swimmers, and keeping the boat on a streamline channel to success. The bills are paid, the clients are committed and the trust has been established in the industry. One of the founding directors spoke at an event in Switzerland where the UN and the Bill Gates Foundation applauded the outlook of the company and its effort to make a difference. If those applauses turn into transfers of additional capital, then that'll be great. If not, we'll still navigate the white water.

THE CAR SALE

We sold a small white car for a few thousand dollars. The deal was that the buyer would pay over three months. Three months came and went and finally the buyer arrived at the office. She shut down her business and was moving out of town and was about to sell the car again to someone else. But she needed to conclude the deal with us first. So she talked us down a few hundred dollars so that she could conclude the sale, which turned out to be a loss to the other person buying the vehicle. So it was a three way conundrum where everyone cut their losses. But, at least things moved (sort of).

The deals in Zim these days are strange. It's three deals in one, all the time. "I have a little bit of US cash, some transfer, some Zim Bond note, here's a jar full of rand coins, and I'll pay you a little bit when I get some more... if you're ok with that deal?" It's barter and trade all over again. People are de-registering their companies, because the demands to keep them formal are seemingly too high. Auditors, taxes, penalties and internal transfer taxes abound in this ever-expanding swamp.

A CLOSING THOUGHT

Relationships are still key. All of our businesses are looking regional and it's actually forcing us to adopt scalable models. It's a good lesson: build it in from the beginning and when it comes time to scale, making that shift is not so insurmountable.

The goal of foreign aid in the 1950s was to instigate economic development. It wasn’t to save lives after a humanitarian crisis or find cures for disease. There have been changes of course, and quite remarkable ones. Yet...

]]>The goal of foreign aid in the 1950s was to instigate economic development. It wasn’t to save lives after a humanitarian crisis or find cures for disease. There have been changes of course, and quite remarkable ones. Yet...

This post was heavily inspired by this article. We quote it significantly here and wanted to provide some dialog and feedback for you, our tribe.

The goal of foreign aid in the 1950s was to instigate economic development. It wasn’t to save lives after a humanitarian crisis or find cures for disease.

There have been changes of course, and quite remarkable ones. We’ve seen third world countries become second world—Morocco, Botswana, Chile, South Africa, and Indonesia to name a few—at least in terms of big data statistics like GDP per capita.

Yet, aid has resulted in remarkably few significant shifts in economic growth and poverty reduction. The truth is much of aid’s promise has come up empty.

It’s estimated that over 75% of Zimbabweans live in poverty (under $2/day). And those aren’t even the official stats. It could be far more dire.

Now this next one may be a tough quote for us Zimbabweans to swallow, but please hear my heart on this one—I’m not making a colonial case here, my hope is to draw your attention inward. To look at your own heart, your own character.

British development economist Peter Bauer wrote in 1974. "What holds back many poor countries is the people who live there, including their governments. A society which cannot develop without external gifts is altogether unlikely to do so with them.”

As much as we hate to admit this, it’s true. I see this many times as an entrepreneur. When I hire someone who is looking to me to tell them what to do, it’s all wrong from the beginning. There’s no initiative.

And if we are constantly standing with our hand out waiting for someone to bring a bag of rice, or tell me what to do with my life, or tell me if I should get remarried again, then we’ve missed the plot.

It starts within. It starts in our homes. It starts in our companies. Do we see a problem in our neighborhood and solve it?

The guys who are patching the roads with bricks—they are some of my favorite people. Because they see a problem and attack it head on. They should be commended! You should rally your neighbors around this person and employ them to do the full road rebuild in your neighborhood.

Aid has become an industry. We know that. But industries only exist because there are mindsets and markets that allow them to.

We’re still waiting for the rice truck to show up.

We’re kicking off a new project in a slum nearby Harare. The people there have nothing, not even a functional toilet. Yet on the road to the high-density area, there is building after building built by international NGOs and governments.

The best infrastructure with the wrong mindset doesn’t solve problems. It’s just a distraction from the heart of the issue.

Now, I’m all for rice trucks. We fund them, we do them, we feed people regularly through our non-profit work. I think that’s something that all companies, churches, and communities should do.

But when you start profiting from these problems, then that’s when the lines get hairy.

This struck a chord with me. See if this quote from the article rings true to you.

"There are now thousands of ongoing projects that amount to band-aid solutions where the results of ‘our' interventions disappear almost immediately after the departure of our ‘expert' teams in their Land Cruisers:

new water wells dug in villages where previous donor-built wells have failed

countless capacity-building workshops attended by poor people who are often motivated by the 'sitting allowance'—a cash gift

tools given out to farmers who then sell them

projects that attempt to convert sex workers into sellers of samosas on the streets of Addis Ababa without realizing that the money they make in the sex trade is far greater than anything else they can do

microfinance projects in South Sudan where the economy is so bad that there is no money for anyone to buy what a 'micro-entrepreneur' might have to sell.

There are more ineffective projects like these than ever, all presented as world-changing in the aid agencies’ marketing campaigns."

Now for the politics. :)

I have been asked many times what I think now that Trump is in office, in terms of his policies toward Africa. This sums it up:

"If aid is cut—even for the wrong reasons—to those nations where the evidence of its ineffectiveness goes back decades (almost half of the 48 countries on the UN’s Least Developed Countries list have been on it since the list began in 1971, e.g., Haiti, Malawi, Guinea, Benin, Niger, and others), there is a good chance that at least some of these countries will have a real incentive to take charge of their own future.”

The problem is within. You don’t have to solve a big problem, but if you’re using your life and career in a useful way to your society, then you’re on the right track.

The best time to invest in something is when nobody believes in it but you...You have to totally believe in it and know why. Before starting their new venture, which has made successful investments in Twitter, Etsy, Uber and more, they spent 6 months writing their manifesto on venture capital and the focus they were going after. After writing that, “we knew why.” ...

]]>The best time to invest in something is when nobody believes in it but you...You have to totally believe in it and know why. Before starting their new venture, which has made successful investments in Twitter, Etsy, Uber and more, they spent 6 months writing their manifesto on venture capital and the focus they were going after. After writing that, “we knew why.” ...

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures gave an interesting talk at MIT recently. He said that "the best time to invest in something is when nobody believes in it but you...You have to totally believe in it and know why.”

Before starting their new venture, which has made successful investments in Twitter, Etsy, Uber and more, he and his partner spent 6 months writing their manifesto on venture capital and the focus they were going after.

After writing that, “we knew why.”

Do you know why in your business pursuits?

The data on the horizon looks promising. But only those that know why will be able to harness it effectively.

According to the report, private equity investors should consider alternative investment approaches more suitable to evolving markets.

In fact, Private Equity Capital grew from $1 billion USD in the early 1990s to $30 billion in 2016.

Opportunties for gains are abundant among small, midsize, and family-owned companies, some of which are engaged in digital start-ups.

The keys to investment success:

Entrepreneurs in Africa need a bit more development regarding their business plans and company management

Investors must be ready to provide technical support on growing the business.

Teach the entrepreneurs to form partnerships.

Investors can often take stakes in existing enterprises.

Using “evergreen” funds that don’t prescribe specific exit times. Meaning, work with entrepreneurs on best business practices without demanding a timeline that they can’t control. (Sidenote: this is huge. We were given a forced timeline in our first startup. It caused poor decision making and unproductive conversations with our investors.)

Create small, specialized funds that prepare new ventures for buyouts and IPOs.

One of the main keys with this: “At the inception of the decision-making process, analysts should research possible prospective buyers. Identifying future suitors can inform investment options, alternatives and choices, resulting in greater profits and competitive advantages.”

Knowing why and starting with the end in mind is paramount to success in business. And it’s essential to having a chance of survival in business in Africa.

Always work with deadlines. The frustration, or the feeling of being blocked, has a purpose. Robert Greene writes in his book Mastery about Albert Einstein giving up on the problem of general relativity. One night, he threw in the towel. Enough is enough—I’ll never solve it!...

]]>Always work with deadlines. The frustration, or the feeling of being blocked, has a purpose. Robert Greene writes in his book Mastery about Albert Einstein giving up on the problem of general relativity. One night, he threw in the towel. Enough is enough—I’ll never solve it!...

Always work with deadlines.

The frustration, or the feeling of being blocked, has a purpose.

Robert Greene writes in his book Mastery about Albert Einstein giving up on the problem of general relativity. One night, he threw in the towel. Enough is enough—I’ll never solve it! “He went to bed early, and when he awoke the solution suddenly came to him.”

The composer Richard Wagner also had a similar story. He had worked so hard on his opera Das Rheingold that he became completely blocked. Beyond frustration, he took a long walk in the woods, lay down, and fell asleep. “In a sort of half dream, he felt himself sinking in swiftly flowing water. The rushing sounds formed into musical chords…These chords became the prelude of the opera, a leitmotif that runs throughout it, and one of the most astonishing pieces he had ever written.”

And this story is insane:

“Among the thousands of stories of great insights and discoveries, perhaps the strangest one of all is that of Evariste Galois, a promising student of mathematics in France who in his teens revealed exceptional brilliance in algebra. In 1831, at the age of twenty, he became embroiled in a quarrel over a woman, which resulted in his being challenged to a duel. The night before the duel, certain he was going to die, Galois sat down and tried to summarize all of the ideas on algebraic equations that had been troubling to him. He wrote all night at a feverish pitch. The next day, as he had foreseen, he died in the duel, but in the ensuing years his notes were read and published, leading to a complete revolution in higher algebra. Some of his scribbled notes indicated directions in mathematics that were so far ahead of his time, it is hard to fathom where they came from.”

This is an extreme example, but it illustrates a powerful point about the need for tension in your projects. If you feel like you have an infinite supply of time to complete something, then your brain takes its time and paces itself. In fact, that mentality can be debilitating to a project.

Your lack of intensity makes it hard for your brain to jolt into a higher, creative gear.

That’s why it’s important that you always work with deadlines, whether manufactured or real.

Think about Thomas Edison talking to the press about inventions that he hadn’t figured out yet. He was promoting something that hadn’t been invented. Elon Musk of SpaceX does this today. The famed Steve Jobs was infamous for this.

The greatest inventors in modern history always worked with deadlines. And they stuck to them so much that it unlocked a deeper creative genius in their work.

Some quick ideas on types of deadlines:

15 minutes to write an article that’s due.

60 minutes to compose that essay you’ve been putting off.

10 minutes to read through the proposal and formulate a few questions for that board meeting.

10 days to stop eating sugar and drink more water.

30 days to create your idea, show it to 100 potential customers and decide if it’s a right fit for a new company.

5 years to solve a massive problem you’ve been dreaming about.

Here’s a good one, forward this email to 10 friends in 30 seconds. :)

There are all sorts of deadlines you can use. If you’re not already building deadlines into your work, projects, company, then start right now.

...These so-called Hero Rats have become proficient mine sweepers—clearing mass fields of dangerous explosives left after war. And thus far, they’re cheaper, faster to train, and have a perfect success rate—no casualties to date...

]]>...These so-called Hero Rats have become proficient mine sweepers—clearing mass fields of dangerous explosives left after war. And thus far, they’re cheaper, faster to train, and have a perfect success rate—no casualties to date...

We received a fascinating article recently from a CEO and good friend of ours. He included some commentary that we thought worthy of sharing with you all here.

The article talks about how rats are trained to sniff out landmines amongst other things. The so-called Hero Rats have become proficient mine sweepers—clearing mass fields of dangerous explosives left after war. And thus far, they’re cheaper, faster to train, and have a perfect success rate—no casualties to date.

There’s a great lesson here:

Where else do we use and send human capital to do a dangerous or tedious job that could be done using other means or resources?

Are you sending a sales person into the field without good tools or support? This is a dangerous game that can hurt the reputation and longevity of the sales person and the company.

What about sending kids off to school without their basic needs met…

Or pastors who are not fully supported by their flock, but are ok letting the pastor do all the grunt work to serve them.

Here’s one that may be close to home for some of you, parents who can always find the time to do what they want to do, but will allow others (teachers, coaches, grandparents AKA the mine sweepers) to do all of the heavy lifting.

Politicians who send people, nations, and other politicians to "clear the fields”...

What are some ways you can use Hero Rats in your life to avoid human collateral?

Money has a color (and it's not racist). "There's some money you never want to take.” I was told this by a well-seasoned investment banker who's done everything from coal mine deals in Africa to New York stock exchange maneuvers. It stuck with me...

]]>Money has a color (and it's not racist). "There's some money you never want to take.” I was told this by a well-seasoned investment banker who's done everything from coal mine deals in Africa to New York stock exchange maneuvers. It stuck with me...

Money has a color (and it's not racist).

"There's some money you never want to take.”

I was told this by a well-seasoned investment banker who's done everything from coal mine deals in Africa to New York stock exchange maneuvers.

It stuck with me. Since then, I've looked at the different personalities of financiers—the unique ways of funding—and realized that money has a color.

Keep this in mind when you take a grant, get an investment, or even bill it out.

Blue Money. It's emotional. It's the kind of money that will leave you because of one bad move. A friend of ours got big, blue money for a start up in a metropolitan city. He made a few, bold, unorthodox moves, and the investor completely flipped out and wants to change the terms.

Red Money. This is blood money. It's the type of funding or earning you get where there are no rules. No fundamental truths. Just returns. No matter what, this type of money demands returns above integrity. As myth would have it, sharks smell blood from hundreds of miles away. This type of money does too.

Green Money. The best type of money. It desires to grow things. People with green money want to see production, life and community building. It's sustainable, reasonable, and cares about morals, the environment and the future generations. This is the money to get. Find investors who work with green money.

Yellow Money. When times get tough…they run. This kind of money wants a quick exit when the future looks shaky and it's got yellow, yield signs on its agreements. Whichever way works best for itself, that's how this money sets the deal. It’s very self-serving cash.

Clear Money. It seems harmless, but it's void color. Many aspects of foreign aid or donor funding are clear—there's no substance. It doesn't leave a mark. It's here one day and gone the next, and the tides of change shift agendas, focus areas and personalities. It has limited accountability and looks for credit. It's a client who loves you, but the next day goes after the lowest bidder. Africa is doused in clear money—no one knows where it all goes, but we have some pretty good ideas.

If you're looking to build something that lasts, go after the Green Money. Don't settle for the money that will entangle you in groves of mess.

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. In the 1800s, many families sought greener pastures and moved West across the undiscovered America. They could travel as far as Cumberland Gap in Missouri, but then...

]]>It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed. In the 1800s, many families sought greener pastures and moved West across the undiscovered America. They could travel as far as Cumberland Gap in Missouri, but then...

“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” —Napoleon Hill

In the 1800s, many families sought greener pastures and moved West across the undiscovered America. They could travel as far as Cumberland Gap in Missouri, but then had to travel another 3,200 km (2,000 mi) by wagon to the Pacific Coast. Once leaving Missouri, it was near impossible for a single family to forge ahead alone, so they would wait on the side of the trail until a troupe they could join would pass.

Often, these new formed bonds were created over one short conversation. It was connection at the Speed of Trust.

Four or five generations later, this same family culture became many of the risk-takers who started companies in Silicon Valley.

“What we see in Silicon Valley is a legacy of the expansion of the American frontier, which required the creation of spontaneous, high-trust communities among diverse strangers.”

“We would often be in the lab working and get a call from one of our competitors across town- they would have some kind of problem, and they would ask for help. We would drop what we were doing, load up our equipment in our cars, and drive to their lab and lend a hand. We would work all night if we had to, and fix the problem. We would figure it out and then everybody would head to The Wagon Wheel [a local cafe] to get breakfast together. The next day we were all back at work at our respective companies. That was the way it worked back then, we were all in it together.”

We’ve found that the most successful people we know are the most willing to offer a hand up the so-called “Ladder of Success” in life. They implement an Exhortation Style versus a Parkour Style.

Exhortation Style is encouragement and intrinsically motivating others. In other words, you’re motivated by a great vision and making the world a better place.

Parkour Style is follow the leader as he jumps off of buildings and rolls around on gravel. It’s fun to watch, but scary to follow in the footsteps. In other words, this style shoots the follower down (or breaks their leg).

If you haven't seen parkour in action before, watch this (or see below). This style of leadership feels cool at first, then just turns silly after you start trying to emulate it.

Are you taking risks just to take them? Or are you surrounding yourself with other families, friends, competitors who you can help succeed? Success breeds success.

Delegation does not equal responsibility handover. When you delegate a task, you are not delegating responsibility. Rather, you are adding greater responsibility. You’re trusting that the person who is helping will also view the delegated task with great value, just like you do...

]]>Delegation does not equal responsibility handover. When you delegate a task, you are not delegating responsibility. Rather, you are adding greater responsibility. You’re trusting that the person who is helping will also view the delegated task with great value, just like you do...

Delegation does not equal responsibility handover.

Delegation should produce:

efficiency

teamwork

momentum

growth

When you delegate a task, you are not delegating responsibility. Rather, you are adding greater responsibility. You’re trusting that the person who is helping will also view the delegated task with great value, just like you do.

The Delegator is still responsible, even if he’s delegated it away.

The Delegatee is also responsible.

Responsibility should exponentially grow when things are delegated.

Trickle Down Responsibility is a requirement before you press the Delegation Button. If you’re not clear about your personal responsibility before delegating, the person who is delegated to rarely picks up the responsibility baton.

Most of the time this is confused. Someone delegates a task and they also pass on all responsibility for it. That kind of passed on responsibility is how corruption grows, companies fail, and nations collapse.

You can’t delegate responsibility. You might think you can, but ultimately, it doesn’t work very well.

Take responsibility. Then delegate the task and the shared weight of accomplishing it.

Right now you can search and find anything you want. Think of it like searching out the dots. Each dot has a piece of information that you can discover. Like, how long does it take for snow peas to germinate? Believe it or not, you can find that answer immediately...

]]>Right now you can search and find anything you want. Think of it like searching out the dots. Each dot has a piece of information that you can discover. Like, how long does it take for snow peas to germinate? Believe it or not, you can find that answer immediately...

Right now you can search and find anything you want. Think of it like searching out the dots. Each dot has a piece of information that you can discover.

Like, how long does it take for snow peas to germinate? Believe it or not, you can find that answer immediately.

But the key isn’t what you can search for and learn. Lots of dots are created and flung onto the page. But the key is if you’re able to connect the dots together. Knowledge is one thing (snow peas), then building that knowledge into action is how profit builds (distributing peas at great market rate).

Are you connecting the dots in life? Packaging information with practical skills or a solutions. When you connect the dots, it creates a beautiful picture (or a profitable business).

Do you ever feel like your business growth efforts are futile? Like you’re just kicking an idea around and two years later, you’re still kicking it? We have a ton of ideas we throw out there just to see if any stick. Then we kick them down the dirt path and see if...

]]>Do you ever feel like your business growth efforts are futile? Like you’re just kicking an idea around and two years later, you’re still kicking it? We have a ton of ideas we throw out there just to see if any stick. Then we kick them down the dirt path and see if...

Do you ever feel like your business growth efforts are futile? Like you’re just kicking an idea around and two years later, you’re still kicking it?

We have a ton of ideas we throw out there just to see if any stick. Then we kick them down the dirt path and see if any of them are fun to keep kicking.

That’s part of being an entrepreneur.

But what separates an Wantrepreneur from an Entrepreneur is that they know how to go from the dirt path kicking to producing profit and allowing the idea to speed along down that path.

It’s ok to have ideas in the kicking phase, and for a long time at that. Sometimes the timing is off, or the technology isn’t there yet, or the market isn’t developed yet.

But once that idea gets harder to kick, then you’ve got to stop, get dirty and add the engine and wheels to let the idea go from kicking speed to 300 kmh racing speed.

It’s ok to have an idea in the kicking phase, but be honest about what phase it’s in.

We believe that developing alternative business models to the startup status quo has become a central moral challenge of our time. These alternative models will balance profit and purpose, champion democracy, and put a premium on sharing power and resources. Companies that create...

]]>We believe that developing alternative business models to the startup status quo has become a central moral challenge of our time. These alternative models will balance profit and purpose, champion democracy, and put a premium on sharing power and resources. Companies that create...

"We believe that developing alternative business models to the startup status quo has become a central moral challenge of our time. These alternative models will balance profit and purpose, champion democracy, and put a premium on sharing power and resources. Companies that create a more just and responsible society will hear, help, and heal the customers and communities they serve.” —Mara Zepada & Jennifer Brande [source]

There’s an undercurrent that has evolved from the Western startup communities that glorifies the quick exit—making 100X or even 10,000X an investors money.

The problem is, these are the exception to the rule. There are hundreds of thousands of failed businesses for this handful of diamonds.

And what happens is, other entrepreneurs begin to turn their nose up to a genuine great idea that produces a profit and is sustainable because it’s only producing 2X your money each year.

2X your money each year for 30 years is a heckuva deal, people.

There is nothing wrong with running a small business that makes a profit. In fact, we think it’s admirable. A great small business can do a lot of good, employ wonderful people, and make a real difference in a community and a nation.

Let’s stop fantasizing about growth statistics and dreaming of some massive exit. Strive to build a Zebra business. Zebras are sexier than unicorns anyway. And they’re real.

There's far too much red tape and not enough red carpet. Red Tape has a bad wrap, so much so that no one ever thinks of its value. It's put up to keep you from doing anything. I hear a lot of young fervent disruptors...

]]>There's far too much red tape and not enough red carpet. Red Tape has a bad wrap, so much so that no one ever thinks of its value. It's put up to keep you from doing anything. I hear a lot of young fervent disruptors...

Red Tape has a bad wrap, so much so that no one ever thinks of its value. It's put up to keep you from doing anything. I hear a lot of young fervent disruptors complaining about red tape.

Here's the thing, there's always red tape.

No matter where you go, or what organization you lead or that you're apart of. The Red Tape won't die. If you cut all the red tape in the world there would be anarchy, unruly citizens and a whole bunch of curiosity that will kill more than cats.

You've got to choose the best kind of red tape and create an organization or a culture that puts the red tape in the right places.

Good Red Tape brings rewards.

Good Red Tape keeps people from making the same mistakes again and again.

Good Red Tape keeps the hazardous areas away from the public.

Good Red Tape is clear on what it's protecting.

Good Red Tape keeps the crime scene away from people who shouldn't be meddling with it.

Good Red tape keeps people from stepping over cliffs.

Bad Red tape makes it hard for people to do their job.

Bad Red tape covers up things that everyone should know about.

Bad Red tape makes it hard for a payment to go through to an agreed outsource party.

Bad Red tape forces people to get 7 signatures on one document that's worth $20.

Tactics are great, they’re how you implement your overall strategy. Strategy is what dictates tactics, or at least it should. If you don’t have great strategy, your tactics won’t matter. Culture is what shapes your...

]]>Tactics are great, they’re how you implement your overall strategy. Strategy is what dictates tactics, or at least it should. If you don’t have great strategy, your tactics won’t matter. Culture is what shapes your...

Tactics are great, they’re how you implement your overall strategy.

Strategy is what dictates tactics, or at least it should. If you don’t have great strategy, your tactics won’t matter.

Culture is what shapes your strategy. It’s the ethos of who you are and why you do what you do. It’s how you view the world. It’s often subconscious, unless you really work to shape it. Where you’re from, what you were taught, and what your parents believed affect this too.

It’s a proven fact that if you want to change the world, you can do it with good strategy. But if you want that change to be sustainable, you must infiltrate and shape the culture.

Culture starts by your core set of beliefs. And writing them down is a great start, but practicing, believing them, and evangelizing your world is what sustains all of this.

Hiring for strategy is key, but only if that individual’s culture aligns with yours.

Ours is a story about the kinds of traditional principles that made America great in the first place. It’s a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. It’s a story about...

]]>Ours is a story about the kinds of traditional principles that made America great in the first place. It’s a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. It’s a story about...

“Ours is a story about the kinds of traditional principles that made America great in the first place. It’s a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. It’s a story about believing in your idea even when some other folks don’t, and about sticking to your guns.” -Sam Walton

Sam Walton didn’t start out trying to create a mega-business. He just wanted to offer his friends and neighbors a good deal on their everyday needs. Fast forward 70 years, and they gross half a trillion dollars a year in revenue. That’s vastly more than most nations.

One company produces half a trillion in revenue. All of Africa combined produces 3 trillion!

There’s something telling as you walk through Walmart’s museum in Bentonville, AR. They set out to help people. Then they got the best people on the team with the right attitudes and grew it steadily and consistently.

A few smart moves acquiring a brand here and there and they began to explode. Up until his last breathe, Walton wasn’t trying to become rich, he was trying to help the next person in line.

2.3 million jobs directly given in their company. Not to mention the millions of ripple effect jobs with all of Walmart’s partners and suppliers.

Say what you like about the Walmart of today. But their original founder knew something about what it took to start and grow a good quality business.

"No one's above a little love." How do you connect with the big time leaders who inspire you? Have you ever wondered how to connect with influencers? Don’t know what to say? Are you nervous about...

]]>"No one's above a little love." How do you connect with the big time leaders who inspire you? Have you ever wondered how to connect with influencers? Don’t know what to say? Are you nervous about...

How do you connect with the big time leaders who inspire you? Have you ever wondered how to connect with influencers?

Don’t know what to say? Are you nervous about talking to them?

Think through what you would like to ask and learn from them. Offer to help on a specific project you know they have upcoming (with no strings attached). Then do that work diligently and with excellence.

According to the top answer to this question on Quora: "So step one in meeting a very busy person when you are not inherently part of their priorities it to learn more about them and what they care about. Once you have done that, you can do one of two things: take part in what they are trying to accomplish, or come up with something which is more interesting to them than the alternatives.”

Don’t waste their time. You would rather have them slow down the conversation and inquire for more, than for you to push push push until they have to literally walk away from you to end the convo.

Don’t be a mooch. Buy their coffee and their lunch. And don’t ask for anything in return. You’ll be surprised how far that goes and how respected and honored their influencer will feel.

Give first.

Ask for nothing in return.

Genuinely encourage and thank.

Pick up the tab.

But here’s the true secret, successful people love to learn new things.

Steve Blank says he won’t take a meeting if you're “...offering me money. Not for stock. But who is offering to teach me something I don’t know.”

This is called a two-way meeting. You give and they give. It’s a win-win. Never come into any meeting without first thinking and planning what you can give. If you create this kind of meeting ethos, you’ll find that your meetings are productive, insightful, and lead to progress and future connection.

What have you learned that an influencer, investor, or potential mentor would want to learn?

For more resources on how to email busy people or talk to influencers, here are a few great resources:

It's no longer a generational thing. The digital generation is every generation. It is no longer about who is using digital, but rather how they are using digital because we all are. A few years ago...

]]>It's no longer a generational thing. The digital generation is every generation. It is no longer about who is using digital, but rather how they are using digital because we all are. A few years ago...

It's no longer a generational thing. The digital generation is every generation.

It is no longer about who is using digital, but rather how they are using digital because we all are.

A few years ago, there were studies on who was using technology and what channels they were using. Now it’s a fact everyone is using it, so now the studies focus on how they are.

This is a true story, except for the millions of people on our continent who are not digital just yet. Most everyone has access to a smartphone now, but that doesn’t mean it’s affordable or attractive to individuals.

Call it a prediction or a forecast, but there will be massive opportunity for the entrepreneurs who can train this next wave of African digital user and design products, services, and their businesses around this segment.

Any time you undergo a large vision project, you must have a strong leadership development program. Military, politics, business, teachers, all of these occupations must be taught, trained, and developed...

]]>Any time you undergo a large vision project, you must have a strong leadership development program. Military, politics, business, teachers, all of these occupations must be taught, trained, and developed...

Wharton School of Business had an interesting interview they posted last month. You can listen to the entire interview here.

Any time you undergo a large vision project, you must have a strong leadership development program. Military, politics, business, teachers, all of these occupations must be taught, trained, and developed.

The same goes for business leaders. We need all hands on deck to create a leadership pipeline for Africa. This is especially true in the entrepreneur community, and especially for women seeking to start businesses.

Yawa Hansen-Quao, says in her interview:

There is a strong push towards entrepreneurship partly because there’s such a high unemployment rate. There are so many people chasing jobs that are just nonexistent at the moment. Out of necessity, people are forced to look at an entrepreneurial pathway for their careers. I think that there has also been a lot of romanticization of entrepreneurs. There’s a sense that, "I will also start in my garage, and I will be the next [Facebook co-founder Mark] Zuckerberg."

There are a lot of factors that are making people inclined to take the entrepreneurial path. I think for women, it’s partly because of the social burden of child care. They get married, they have children, a lot of the responsibility for their homes falls on them. It’s actually an easier thing to manage, alongside their families, as opposed to the structured world of work where they need to be in a certain place at a specific time. Taking the entrepreneurial pathway provides flexibility that a lot of women look for.

We’ve found that a good leadership pipeline contains:

Organized teaching and training on culture. If your culture doesn’t promote the right thinking, you won’t be able to become anything outside of it. So you have to address your thinking.

Consistent mentorship centered around the skill-sets needed to build a business.

Group collaboration and accountability (this happens in our world via regularly held Pitch Night meetings).

Opportunities to thrive after the teaching, training, mentoring, and growth.

This is where things invariably break down for many in their thinking. If the road gets tough, then I can’t continue down this path. We hear it all the time. “I just don’t have any opportunities.” You have to be positioned for opportunities in order to obtain them.

This may require a job that’s “beneath you" for a time in order to learn the skills you need to take advantage of an opportunity.

This is not romantic work. It requires a vision, determination, a calling, and honesty with yourself, your idea, and the path you’ve chosen. Then, after all of that work and preparation, you may stumble into a bit of “luck."

Not only did they indicate that it's the worst video they'd ever seen, but the Marketing Chief said, "This is the worst day of my life because of this video." I could see the director of the short story clenching his fists and holding back...

]]>Not only did they indicate that it's the worst video they'd ever seen, but the Marketing Chief said, "This is the worst day of my life because of this video." I could see the director of the short story clenching his fists and holding back...

Not only did they indicate that it's the worst video they'd ever seen, but the Marketing Chief said, "This is the worst day of my life because of this video."

I could see the director of the short story clenching his fists and holding back his retort. I assured him to relax.The room was tense and it became very quiet.

Now the MD piped in, “Well, I guess it'll have to work because the big event is tonight." He continued, "It's a work in progress, that's all I can say… But we'll show this tonight because we have to show something."

It was a blow. More so because we knew we nailed it.

A few of our team went that night to get the highlights of our event. People from all over Europe came to witness the landmark achievements of this massive organization, and they were about to watch the Worst Video Ever Created.

The video played. It ended. And to the amazement of almost everybody, the room stood. The room clapped and there were tears in the eyes of the international partners. Everyone ordered copies.

Later, the video became the chief focal point of the company's new website. We've since developed a strong relationship with the company and the director has since unclenched his fist.

We've said it before, sometimes the client doesn't know what they want (most times). Even when they see it. A culture shift is hard. And when people are used to long speeches, long videos with every ounce of information crammed into a script, potholes, banking delays and boring board meetings, it makes it difficult for them to define what they want.

That’s why its your job to give your clients what they need. Not just what they say they want and need.

When it changes, they think something is missing. When the better things arrive, initially they might think it's the worst day of their life. It’s hard to trade something good for what is best.

Social media is important in Africa. It’s used as a communication tool. And it’s used as a primary source of news and entertainment. But what is this doing to how we understand the world? ...

]]>Social media is important in Africa. It’s used as a communication tool. And it’s used as a primary source of news and entertainment. But what is this doing to how we understand the world? ...

Social media is important in Africa.

It’s used as a communication tool. And it’s used as a primary source of news and entertainment.

But what is this doing to how we understand the world?

The world is flat.

Riots in the streets.

President is dead.

Obama is the antichrist.

Conspiracies run rampant.

What is true?

Less than 60 million households in sub-Saharan Africa have TV. Yet brands still treat TV as the penultimate marketing tool.

Social has the potential to reach so many more if done well.

Yet we're in meetings where companies are demanding in the millions of reach for TV. Is that unrealistic? It depends on how much you're willing to spend for those eyeballs.

Social media is a level playing field no matter the capital budget. You can reach Munya in the capital or Munya in the bush.

Social media is media. That’s what you have to understand. And in order to communicate with your base, your customers and future customers, if you’re not using social, you’re behind.

"The transformation of “social media” to plain old “media” is happening fast in advanced economies, but in emerging countries, particularly in Africa, the impact of that transformation may already be apparent. The decentralization of media and communications may seem a threat to those who have traditionally controlled the levers of power, but the true, and mostly positive, influence of social media has only just begun. It should be embraced."

For more on this, read this fantastic perspective here from Yinka Adegoke.

Looking for a secret shortcut to business success? Many people turn their nose up when they’re told no. Sorry, no thanks, we’re not interested. That kind of direct speech freaks many people out. When you have a client who demands that you do...

]]>Looking for a secret shortcut to business success? Many people turn their nose up when they’re told no. Sorry, no thanks, we’re not interested. That kind of direct speech freaks many people out. When you have a client who demands that you do...

Looking for a secret shortcut to business success?

Many people turn their nose up when they’re told no. Sorry, no thanks, we’re not interested. That kind of direct speech freaks many people out.

When you have a client who demands that you do the project differently than you think it should be done, there can be give and take. But if you’re the expert that they’ve hired, then you shouldn’t hesitate when it comes to pushing back, especially if they’re derailing their own progress.

That kind of pushback should be your mode of operation, “You have hired me to help you, and the way you’re going about it is wrong…”

If they won’t listen, then don’t work with them.

Ah, yes, I’m telling you to throw away business. But if you look at it that way, you’ll miss the beauty behind having standards.

Saying no is powerful and creates value and demand. Not an arbitrary no where you randomly shut people down as a negotiation tactic. I’m talking about a thoughtful, helpful, compassionate no.

Having standards of who you’ll work with and how you’ll work with them is a requirement for an excellent business.

This can be extrapolated to pricing, hiring, product development and to the culture of your business.

"The thing is, if you begin with standards and stick with them, you don't have to become a jackal to make ends meet. Not only is there nothing wrong with having standards, it turns out to be a shortcut to doing great work and making an impact.”

I saw a video of Mark Cuban the other day discussing how he has been diving deep into deep networks and AI research. He’s immersing himself into the future of tech because he wants to be positioned to invest in the industries of the future. If you don’t understand a topic, do you...

]]>I saw a video of Mark Cuban the other day discussing how he has been diving deep into deep networks and AI research. He’s immersing himself into the future of tech because he wants to be positioned to invest in the industries of the future. If you don’t understand a topic, do you...

I saw a video of Mark Cuban the other day discussing how he has been diving deep into deep networks and AI research. He’s immersing himself into the future of tech because he wants to be positioned to invest in the industries of the future.

If you don’t understand a topic, do you shy away from it?

The most successful people I know voraciously read everything they can about things they don’t understand, are trying to figure out, and are curious about. They also find the most competent people in those fields and interview them thoroughly.

Here are a few articles and resources we’ve read and have been pondering lately. We hope they inspire you to be curious, ask questions, and dive deeply into the topics that are unknown and foreign to you.

Ever wonder how to become a leader? Is a leader born or made? How do you just wake up one day and be a leader? Responsibility means you have the power to control or manage. And it usually involves accountability. I’d like to make the case that leaders aren’t born or made, but they’re...

]]>Ever wonder how to become a leader? Is a leader born or made? How do you just wake up one day and be a leader? Responsibility means you have the power to control or manage. And it usually involves accountability. I’d like to make the case that leaders aren’t born or made, but they’re...

Ever wonder how to become a leader? Is a leader born or made?

How do you just wake up one day and be a leader?

Responsibility means you have the power to control or manage. And it usually involves accountability.

I’d like to make the case that leaders aren’t born or made, but they’re decided. In other words, a person decides to be a leader based on their relationship with responsibility.

Most people don’t want accountability or responsibility. But when someone decides to do something with their life and live with a purpose, they take responsibility for their own life.

This decision then attracts more responsibility and accountability to themselves, their peers, and the part of society that they live in.

The majority of people in life are looking to someone else to take responsibility. Most people will not assume responsibility. This fact then frees you up to assume responsibility for the responsibility to be responsible.

It’s not a tongue twister! When you decide to be responsible, you’re choosing a road of accountability and leadership. And it’s a magnet.

]]>http://emergingideas.com/assume-responsibilityMost Companies in Africa are Starved of this Very Important Thing.http://emergingideas.com/most-companies-in-africa-are-starved-of-this-very-important-thingThu, 16 Feb 2017 06:00:00 GMTpitch@emergingideas.comTim & Tommy

The idea is hot. Then there's lag time. Then there's implementation time. Then there's roll-out time. Imagine a movie hitting the screens with no title. Just a sign saying “Come and see what it is." No hint, no byline just “This is a movie.” People...

]]>The idea is hot. Then there's lag time. Then there's implementation time. Then there's roll-out time. Imagine a movie hitting the screens with no title. Just a sign saying “Come and see what it is." No hint, no byline just “This is a movie.” People...

The idea is hot. Then there's lag time. Then there's implementation time. Then there's roll-out time.

Imagine a movie hitting the screens with no title. Just a sign saying “Come and see what it is." No hint, no byline just “This is a movie.”

People wouldn't go see it.

There's something important that has to be created in between the idea and the release. It sits right in there like a charm, and it's almost more important than the idea. Wait for it...

Anticipation

Anticipation is the rustle of excitement before you can dig in.

Anticipation makes somebody save money for weeks (or months) in order to be apart of the release date.

Anticipation causes the customer to imagine what it will be like.

Anticipation builds promise and hope, and forces someone to make the release part of their schedule.

Most companies try to create hype in two days and release. People aren't ready. You must build up the anticipation. Hype takes time to marinade in your customers’ minds.

Here's a rule: the less known you are, the more that has to be put into creating anticipation.

If you do something right the first time, the less time you have to spend on creating anticipation. It's like Apple, once people believe in your stuff, it takes a lot for them to miss out on your next big thing.

If you do it badly the first time? The next time you release something, that anticipation timeline grows like a beanstalk.

High Anticipation + Good Execution = Trust

High Anticipation + Bad Execution = Distrust

Low Anticipation + Good Execution = Indifference

Low Anticipation + Bad Execution = Invisible

If you're going to do it right. Pull them in and spend time creating the anticipation. It has everything to do with how well it goes.

Let's get one thing clear, starting a business is fun. And then it's all downhill from there. Not really, but if you're in it cause it's fun, you're up for a rude awakening. Growing a business is totally different than starting one...

]]>Let's get one thing clear, starting a business is fun. And then it's all downhill from there. Not really, but if you're in it cause it's fun, you're up for a rude awakening. Growing a business is totally different than starting one...

Let's get one thing clear, starting a business is fun. And then it's all downhill from there. Not really, but if you're in it cause it's fun, you're up for a rude awakening.

Growing a business is totally different than starting one.

I was called to a mysterious coffee meeting a few years ago. The entrepreneur was an inventor, but he had also bridged the gap and knew how to sell the products he had invented. He was successful.

We chitchatted for a few minutes, then his mood shifted, his voice lowered to a whisper.

"What I'm about to show you...I haven't shown to anyone..."

It was an exciting moment in the coffee shop. I felt like we were about to do some sort of mobster hush-hush trade deal or something.

"This is the only widget like this of its kind on the market..."

"So it's already on the market?" I asked.

"Well no, but it's going to be..."

After the big reveal, which was unfortunately a bit of a letdown. He then said, "What do I need to do to get distribution for this?"

"Pick up the phone. Call. Send samples. Listen to their feedback."

"Oh, well. How much do you charge to do that?" he asked me.

We ended up parting ways on the deal. I couldn't reconcile that if the very entrepreneur who invented the widget didn't believe in it enough to make his own phone calls, then the business would stay at the hobby stage for much longer than both of us would have liked.

He canned that idea and ended up finding a new partner on a business that has done very well. The key, his new partner was willing to pick up the phone and call. And together, they were willing to do the hard work to grow the business.

Starting a business is fun:

Name the business

Create a catchy tagline

Tell people about it

Start a Facebook page

Build a website

Dream up fancy prototypes

Incorporate!

Put a few dollars in your new bank account

But growing has its pains:

Being willing to tell your story for the millionth time

Picking up the phone and calling prospective clients. Repeat every day until you start hitting some sales traction and can train others.

Your website, product, widget, app starts having bugs as more people adopt it. Uh oh! Time to do customer service with angry people.

Fixing your mistakes that you're learning as you grow along.

Picking up the phone and calling again and again.

So many entrepreneurs want to do the fun idea stuff, but don't want to get down and dirty and make the phone calls and create the systems.

That's why the entrepreneur above wanted us as his partners...to be his glorified sales guys. He didn't want to do the dirty work at first. But you can't hire really great salespeople until you yourself become really great at selling your own business.

You’re thinking, but you’re also not thinking. It’s subliminal. A famous Zimbabwean entrepreneur said recently, "We Africans, we think that we think." Thinking can be lethargic action. An antithesis of making progress and moving forward. Just because you’ve thought about something and you intend to...

]]>You’re thinking, but you’re also not thinking. It’s subliminal. A famous Zimbabwean entrepreneur said recently, "We Africans, we think that we think." Thinking can be lethargic action. An antithesis of making progress and moving forward. Just because you’ve thought about something and you intend to...

You’re thinking, but you’re also not thinking. It’s subliminal.

A well-known Zimbabwean entrepreneur said recently, "We Africans, we think that we think."

Thinking can be lethargic action. An antithesis of making progress and moving forward. Just because you’ve thought about something and you intend to get around to doing something, has no bearing on the ripple effect of your non-action.

This happens on so many levels in society.

The government official thinks about helping his office staff with the lack of salary payment, but doesn’t put it in writing, action it, and petition for it. He wishes them well with his good thoughts. He thinks he thinks.

But the reality is people are starving because of his thinking.

Or the police officer who sees corrupt dealings all around him and wants to stop, but just thinks about it. Stopping is hard. It would take his entire life’s career to take on this battle. He very well might fail. So he thinks about it and does nothing.

Eventually, he stops thinking about it. Because “Well, I already thought about that…”

He thinks he thinks about stopping corruption.

But the reality is, our very citizens are being extorted and oppressed in the streets. Those who should be the model for justice are demoted to vagabonds in uniforms.

Let’s shift it more personal. You think about helping your wife with the kids. If only she judged you on your intentions! Anyone who’s married out there understands this, you are never judged by your intent, but by what you actually say and DO. (Here’s a tip: do more than you say.)

In your business, you think “Perhaps we could be better in a lot of ways…” but then you don’t go to the point of action and designing systems to run your business efficiently, effectively, and excellently.

Don’t be fooled. You’re thinking you think.

This problem is rampant on our continent. But we must be honest with ourselves. We’re not really thinking it through. We just think we are.

80% of workflow communication does not need an immediate response. If you work in a traditional office setting, think about how many interruptions you have to navigate on a daily basis. And there’s very little triage of the requests. In other words, “Hey you want a coffee?”...

]]>80% of workflow communication does not need an immediate response. If you work in a traditional office setting, think about how many interruptions you have to navigate on a daily basis. And there’s very little triage of the requests. In other words, “Hey you want a coffee?”...

According to the book Remote, 80% of workflow communication does not need an immediate response.

If you work in a traditional office setting, think about how many interruptions you have to navigate on a daily basis. And there’s very little triage of the requests. In other words, “Hey you want a coffee?” is given the same importance as “Hey, we’re about to lose our biggest client, get on the phone now!”

In that example, I guess both are important.

This 80% of non-urgent communication can be responded to within 24 hours via email. The key is to train your team to use email for these requests. Then keep your email decluttered so you can see what’s important. Or use the ever-evolving VIP tab in Gmail.

The next 15% of communication can be shifted to SMS or messaging communication. These are discussions that need a within the hour response. Two team members can message back and forth for a few minutes and get things straightened out, clarified, insight into a particular question, etc.

Example via Whatsapp:

“Hey, where’s the file XYZ?”

“It’s in the 2015 Projects Folder.”

“Thanks, did you see the game last night?”

“Yes, it was crazy…”

And then lastly, there’s this thing called the telephone. You may have heard of it. You can use the call feature for immediate, dire, pressing issues (which not even 5% of most work communication is).

When building a team, implement this protocol. Your team will be more productive, happier, and communicate more effectively.

When you know it's going to fail...Flog a dead horse and you'll waste a lot of energy for nothing. Call a dead horse dead and you can walk away to find a living horse. What's dead? What's not moving? We always asked ourselves...

]]>When you know it's going to fail...Flog a dead horse and you'll waste a lot of energy for nothing. Call a dead horse dead and you can walk away to find a living horse. What's dead? What's not moving? We always asked ourselves...

When you know it's going to fail...

Flog a dead horse and you'll waste a lot of energy for nothing. Call a dead horse dead and you can walk away to find a living horse.

What's dead? What's not moving? We always asked ourselves the question, "What's not working? Ok, let's call it what it is.”

What's not moving will always faithfully do just that—not move. You'll never be surprised by it, unless there's something miraculous that happens or some drastic shock therapy. But even then, you have to call it what is. "This is dead."

So what do you do when you know it's not going to work and you know there'll be disaster?

One time we had to axe a big project. Here's what we had to do:

Admit that it wasn't working (hardest part of all).

Call everyone who was a partner and the people we owed money to (that was almost as hard).

Shut it down properly.

Move on to something that was moving.

It was hard. But, it would have been harder to carry on. And, other dreams were able to move faster because nothing was dragging us down.

Some dead things come back to life. But it's normally a major intervention.

Here's what to remember:

Nothing is ever wasted. What you learn from the dead horse can help you keep the others from dying.

If you stop flogging it, then you'll have a ton more energy to do new things.

Its feelings will not be hurt. Only yours. Remember, the horse is dead! No feelings!

If it's not dead, then consider the cost of reviving it. These are often too high.

We've seen many people hold onto good ideas, but dead ones. They’re waiting for a big break and a big investor. Investors are never keen on something that is dead. There's gotta be at least a trot going on.

"Nike makes some of the best products in the world...But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff." When the word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s it was singular. It meant the very first...

]]>"Nike makes some of the best products in the world...But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff." When the word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s it was singular. It meant the very first...

"Nike makes some of the best products in the world...But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff." — Steve Jobs to Nike’s new CEO when seeking business turnaround advice [source]

When the word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s it was singular. It meant the very first thing. Not things.

Priority stayed singular for five hundred years until we made it plural in the 1900s.

The usage of the word “priorities” in text was pretty much zero until around 1950. Then something happened. “Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple ‘first’ things,” McKeown says.

Take that meeting. Go to that event because you “never know.” Our psychology pushes us too. The fear of missing out is powerful. We don’t want someone else to grab our opportunities.

It seems counterintuitive that shutting down opportunities would be the best way to build something great, but turning them down in exchange for focus is exactly what’s required. Especially today.

It’s a new year and a time to make some changes. What fantastic opportunities are you going to turn down in order to build something great?

Hello from rainy Zimbabwe. This month has been deluge upon deluge of torrential downpour in the nation. It’s an answer to the devastating droughts that have ravaged the soil the past few years. With the rain brings lots of street flooding, mud, and slogging around. It’s a true metaphor of...

]]>Hello from rainy Zimbabwe. This month has been deluge upon deluge of torrential downpour in the nation. It’s an answer to the devastating droughts that have ravaged the soil the past few years. With the rain brings lots of street flooding, mud, and slogging around. It’s a true metaphor of...

If you haven't read Part 1 of our 2016 Year In Review, please read it first:

It’s that time again for our quarterly review. For those new to our tribe, we write these updates every few months to show you what we’ve been working on.

The disclaimer: One of our guiding principles that we seek to implement as a group is transparency. As we work with entrepreneurs and their companies, and build companies of our own, we think it’s important to inform you about what we’re working on, as well as how it’s going. At the end of each Quarter, we’ve written reviews showcasing what projects we’re working on and the status of those. If you’ve followed closely, you’ve noticed that some projects went very well and some have flat-out failed. We think that’s part of it and we’re not going to hide those stories from you, no matter how failure makes us feel in our personal lives (read more about our thoughts on fostering failure here and here and here and here).

Due to our growing portfolio and list of things our team is cooking up, we’ll give you updates on the things that have had movement this quarter. If no movement, then you won’t see it in the list. For a full list on the projects we have going, click here. So for example, we built The Basement almost four years ago, it’s the first modern youth hall in Zimbabwe. There’s not much to update you on with a physical building space other than it’s still runs, hosts weekly events, and is cashflow positive. So we’ll file that in a list of projects on our site.

Ok enough of that…

So here is our 2016 Quarter 4 Year In Review report. Enjoy!

Hello from rainy Zimbabwe. This month has been deluge upon deluge of torrential downpour in the nation. It’s an answer to the devastating droughts that have ravaged the soil the past few years.

With the rain brings lots of street flooding, mud, and slogging around. It’s a true metaphor of how many in the nation feel during the introduction of the infamous Zimbabwe bond note. Read more about that here.

The truth is, people’s spirits are not hopeful and excited about 2017. They are wondering what’s going on and many are not just daydreaming of leaving, but actually wanting to find a way to leave the country. It’s a sad state for many.

For those that have followed our story for very long, you know that we are all about relationships and creating micro-economies despite the circumstances around you. This could not be more relevant and important than now.

It may be hard for many to wrap their minds around, but in the midst of this chaos, our businesses are still surviving (most businesses are stagnate or dead in the water). The progress is slow, but a few of our entrepreneurs are still having investment conversations currently. Some are in the middle of signing new deals—they don’t know how those deals will transpire in the environment, but they’re proceeding on relationship and the faith in their teams.

Zimbabwe is one of the worst economies in the world, and yet there is a remnant of entrepreneurs, who do business with honesty and integrity, who are surviving and positioning themselves to thrive with just a crack in the door of opportunity.

Are you ready for that opportunity yourself?

While we’re on this, have you read the Legatum Prosperity Index 2016? Zimbabwe is ranked at 119th in the world. Whoa! That’s way higher than we’re used to seeing, why?

They sited that Zimbabwe has the biggest prosperity surplus of the region in Education. Yet it has massive challenges in the political and business spheres. Part of this is due to “one of the most severe droughts of the last decade.”

In the report, it’s highlighted that if Zimbabwe can address a few key issues, it can rise further. Some of those key issues being:

skilled workforce—practically train people for jobs

solid & efficient political environment

bolster economic growth

That it could easily rise to the top half of the prosperity index. “Zimbabwe is a low-income country that is over-delivering prosperity given its wealth. It has grown more prosperous since 2007, posting a 17 rank improvement in the global index, though it still has major weaknesses in several key development areas.”

We all know these sorts of reports don’t really matter, but it offers a logical and alternative perspective to the mud-slogging that’s happening on the ground to date.

We've landed in Zambia. Our feet are on the ground and a contract has been signed for multiple services and products. Zimbabwe systems didn't have the pace needed to move with our products and Cotrade is continuing with forward progress into new markets. As we've stated all year, this has been a slow process. It looks as if things will begin to pick up pace for the company in 2017.

CMedia—your story is your marketing.

CMedia had at the privilege to work on the Metallon story about how the dominant gold mine in Zimbabwe thinks and operates. This story is about to be finalized. Dark holes, mining camps and the villages marked the journey of our production team.

The Schweppes Africa tale starts off with a remarkable shot of the elephant gang eating oranges in the desert. It shows the adventure and people behind the brand.

CMedia has shifted gears to telling shorter stories, and developing character-driven pieces. We did an experiment with Econet in the last part of 2016 and learned a lot from a campaign that captured a wide demographic through a Dr. Seuss rhyming script in three different languages.

CMedia is poised for large projects and the Bond Note has hit while we are poised. Uncertainty doesn't stagnate the team, but it's a faith walk into 2017. We're still moving forward and exploring regional expansion out of survival.

Pitch Nights Open Source

GDV is close to receiving its initial round of funding from multiple sources and we'll be transitioning Pitch Night as an open-source platform with the FREE turnkey solution and manual, so that more cities can start pitch nights. Instead of trying to manage the demand of new cities wanting to do pitch night, we've decided just to give it away. We currently have 20 African cities wanting the programme.

Projects that we are working on but are taking lots of African time to get going:

Medical Shipment—providing medicines and supplies in conjunction with local churches. We shipped 2 containers end of 2016! With one more scheduled Q1 2017.

Real Estate—on the look for matching funding and once the rains, which have been the best in years in Zimbabwe, subside the ground breaking begins.

We're weighing all projects and streamlining. Focus, prioritizing and although there's been good things happening with pitch nights, radio shows, etc, we're focusing on building teams, brands and leaders in 2017.

Technology—we're about to launch a Global Communications Platform for a nonprofit (CMI).

We are helping facilitate 5 teams from the USA bring students and church members to Zimbabwe in 2017. Two teams are from our alma-mater, Oral Roberts University. More on these guys, but they'll be conducting a multi-year impact investment project in conjunction with us and Celebrate International.

Educate

Educate attracted a group of students from the University of Oklahoma’s program called The Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth (CCEW). It’s a brilliant group of students who work with social enterprises to scale up their efforts. The team connected so well that they all came to Bulawayo to work with Educate directly! More on that next report, we're sure.

Educate continues to seek funding. 2016 they expanded and had their best year yet. There's always the uncertainty of running a micro-finance business with no currency, but this team are solid and find ways to thrive while everyone else is just trying to make ends meet.

All hail President Trump. Drain the swamp. Trump is now the man in charge. He’s not your problem. He’s not our problem. He’s not Africa’s problem. The African interwebs have been ignited with Trump speculation this weekend. What if Trump defunds all foreign aid?…

]]>All hail President Trump. Drain the swamp. Trump is now the man in charge. He’s not your problem. He’s not our problem. He’s not Africa’s problem. The African interwebs have been ignited with Trump speculation this weekend. What if Trump defunds all foreign aid?…

All hail President Trump. Drain the swamp. Trump is now the man in charge.

The African interwebs have been ignited with Trump speculation this weekend. What if Trump defunds all foreign aid? What if he thinks Africa is a country? If only Hilary had won… I’m going to tear up my green card…

What if, what if, what if…

He’s not your problem. Obama didn’t do much for you either. W. Bush quadrupled aid to Africa. Obama sustained it. If you’re reading this, then you most likely didn’t receive any of that aid anyway! Foreign aid is a broken system. If Trump defunds part of it, then here are a few of the bright sides: reverse brain drain, intra-Africa trade, less channeling of foreign funds for regimes, etc.

Trump isn’t your problem. You are.

I know that may sound harsh to you. But you are your own problem.

You see, the minute you look to the West, or a president, or a government to fix any of your problems, then you’ve lost. You’re a victim to society. You’re going to be stuck in the thinking of it’s always someone else’s problem.

And therein lies the start of a great business…Solving other people’s problems. What a story!

Focusing on your own problems = you’re the victim

Focusing on other people’s problems in order to solve them = a great entrepreneur

Trump will do his thing, but like most of the USA presidents before him, Africa will be left to it’s own devices. Let’s solve our personal issues first, then look to helping our communities, then our nation. Then at that level, you can have an opinion about another nation’s president.

"Go back to where you came from and learn how to speak English." Kids see, kids do. All the educators reading this would give a thumbs up through the screen if they could. A generation always follows in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers unless something drastically changes...

]]>"Go back to where you came from and learn how to speak English." Kids see, kids do. All the educators reading this would give a thumbs up through the screen if they could. A generation always follows in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers unless something drastically changes...

2016 was our best year yet. Our biggest successes by far. But it was also our hardest year. We know many of you may feel this way too. Just when you think you’re getting ahead, there’s a roadblock or two with a man in blue and a yellow reflective vest waving you down.

In Part 1 of our 2016 Review, we’ve prepared a pontification on the year. It’s metaphorical and reflective in nature. It’s harsh, brutal, and in your face. But it’s from our heart. If you lived through 2016 in Zimbabwe, this post may resonate deeply with you.

To be clear, this is not directed at anyone, but rather a request to find a deeper resolve within to be the change agents where we can be in our societies.

Part 2, where we go line-by-line through all of our projects, will be released next week. Stay tuned.

WHAT DO OUR KIDS SEE?

"Go back to where you came from and learn how to speak English."

This video, by NAPCAN holds the image of a man insulting a worker and his young son watching a harsh lash out to a colored worker. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

Kids see, kids do. All the educators reading this would give a thumbs up through the screen if they could. A generation always follows in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers unless something drastically changes.

So in Africa, what do our kids see? Our natural kids, but also the continent's children? The children of the soil. How is it affecting them?

Do our rising sons and daughters wake up to news articles that are supporting local innovation and bold positive headlines?

Do they go to sleep listening to their parents talk about the grand accomplishments being made in the agriculture sector?

Do they see expressive love and affection in how older people relate to each other?

Do they notice the exchange of honor and dignity in our police force and tax authorities?

Do they see supported leadership transition and positive change?

Do they see better roads, better companies, more laughter, less poverty and an inspiring social culture?

Here's what many of the young people see:

News articles that have power bulls raging for more media time.Headlines that are about scandals, stupidity and destruction.

They go to sleep while their parents talk about who they owe money to, or how they're clinically stressed out about an imploding economy, and long bank queues.

This leads to society placing huge emphasis on money and not relationships.

They see a distrusting community and the common “Why can't I find anyone who's honest?" sort of talk.

They take note of the belligerent police force who demand US Dollars for futile reasons with no respect to the drivers or passengers.

They see a tax system designed to close businesses down and break apart families. Then our children take hold of the disrespect that their parents have for government institutions.

They see limited to no leadership change.

They see more potholes as they grow older, more neglect, closing companies, less laughter, more poverty and a depressed social culture.

They see the institutions that were meant to protect and provide justice and structure, instead exploit and extort their own people for selfish and greedy gain.

They see millions of their own people starving and desperate.

What do the kids see peering through the broken wall?

What are we showing them? We can try give them the best education and access to internet, but they'll live how we lived...UNLESS we do something drastic in our culture, in our homes, in our lives.

Meanwhile the rest of the world goes on.

Many of the world’s nations are believing 2017 will a year of great moves forward.

Meanwhile, Africa seems to be hoping for 2018 already. Our hope is displaced to next year and the next and the next. How long will we settle for deferred hope?

It starts with you. Who are you becoming? Who are you reaching and helping? What are you living for?

The best way to end up mediocre is via tiny compromises. It doesn't take much to deviate from the path. Navigating via compass, if you're a few degrees off, you literally could sail to a totally different continent. We are kings and queens of...

]]>The best way to end up mediocre is via tiny compromises. It doesn't take much to deviate from the path. Navigating via compass, if you're a few degrees off, you literally could sail to a totally different continent. We are kings and queens of...

"The best way to end up mediocre is via tiny compromises.” Seth Godin

It doesn't take much to deviate from the path. Navigating via compass, if you're a few degrees off, you literally could sail to a totally different continent.

We are kings and queens of compromise in Africa. It's part of our society. I suppose it's actually human nature.

When a business owner starts to grow and needs to hire more staff, you begin to see those tiny compromises around every corner. It's common.

Next time you encounter a compromise in your life, stop, make note of it, and think about what you could do to solve it, avoid it, or fix the situation.

This exercise will keep you focused on attaining excellence and will keep you fresh in your thinking toward scaling your business growth.

I withdrew $100 bond notes yesterday from a bank. On the withdrawal you must write down the currency you are withdrawing. So I assumed out loud "I'm withdrawing bond notes correct? That's what I write?"...These statements ring like bells all day on the hour every hour. In kombis, dinner tables, companies, coffee stops and...

]]>I withdrew $100 bond notes yesterday from a bank. On the withdrawal you must write down the currency you are withdrawing. So I assumed out loud "I'm withdrawing bond notes correct? That's what I write?"...These statements ring like bells all day on the hour every hour. In kombis, dinner tables, companies, coffee stops and...

"It's crazy!"

“We're not sure what's going on."

“Somehow we'll get through (the ever optimistic citizen)."

"At least there's rain."

"Maybe things will change in 2018 (the long term thinker)."

“Nothing works."

These statements ring like bells all day on the hour every hour. In kombis, dinner tables, companies, coffee stops and the like. Then you have the banking scenario which completely doesn't make sense.

The banks really believe that the Bond Note is the US Dollar. Not like it. Not just one to one, but that the Bond Note in fact is blood to the US Dollar. That it's the same thing just in a different skin.

What is culture? Culture is seen (and unseen) everywhere. It abounds whether you realize it or not. We all are born into a culture—the way our parents do life. It’s that essence and traditional thinking that’s passed down from generation to generation, many times without a second thought...

]]>What is culture? Culture is seen (and unseen) everywhere. It abounds whether you realize it or not. We all are born into a culture—the way our parents do life. It’s that essence and traditional thinking that’s passed down from generation to generation, many times without a second thought...

What is culture?

Webster's defines it as "the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another."

Culture is seen (and unseen) everywhere. It abounds whether you realize it or not. We all are born into a culture—the way our parents do life. It’s that essence and traditional thinking that’s passed down from generation to generation, many times without a second thought.

To put it very simply, culture is the things that we do over and over again.

If I were to say, “Top a tha’ mornin’ to ya gov'nor!” You may immediately think I’m from Great Britain.

If I say, “Hey why don’t y’all come on over tonight for supper…” You could place me as from the southern USA. (Y’all is a contraction of you and all)

If I were to say “Spot fine,” you would immediately think Zimbabwe police.

There are phrases and ways of thinking that stem from our cultures.

All cultures have things they can work on. The Germans strive for excellence and aim to always be on time. If they say 10:32am, then they mean the train leaves at 10:32am. Rigid. They could learn flexibility from our African cultures.

We know 10:32am is not an African departure time just by looking at it! It’ll leave when it’s time to leave. We could learn some valuable lessons about precision from the Germans.

Every culture has it’s own expressions of love, generosity, compassion, and so on. But we must be careful that we don’t allow our hereditary culture to blind us of our own faults.

If your culture has no real word for future and no real word for maintain (like many southern African cultures), then we must be careful how we treat our precious infrastructure (schools, civic buildings, art, natural resources, etc.). We cannot allow our ancestors' culture to cause us to sell our nations short when other cultures are willing to come in under the guise of “progress” only to exploit the beauty, generosity, and amicability of our culture.

Every culture needs to change and grow and that only stems from being intentional to speak into one another’s lives via relationship.

Your companies can have a distinguishable culture to them. They can be crafted and honed over time to blossom and flourish. Because remember, culture is what you do over and over again.

If you consistently underperform for your clients, that’s your culture. Being intentional to uproot unwanted diseases and endemic attitudes in your culture is paramount to all forms of success in life.

Don’t let your culture stagnate. When you do, relationships fall apart, infrastructure crumbles, and all that you cling to falls into ruin. Accountability takes a nap and Excellence is off on a long hike in the mountains.

Be intentional. Hire for excellence. And create a new culture in your families, companies, and communities.

Many of you think you need to create a business, scale it, and sell it. Then you’re rich and live a nice life. But, there are a number of fallacies with that thinking. In Africa, we need more people to start businesses that solve local problems and run for a long time...

]]>Many of you think you need to create a business, scale it, and sell it. Then you’re rich and live a nice life. But, there are a number of fallacies with that thinking. In Africa, we need more people to start businesses that solve local problems and run for a long time...

Many of you think you need to create a business, scale it, and sell it. Then you’re rich and live a nice life. But, there are a number of fallacies with that thinking.

In Africa, we need more people to start businesses that solve local problems and run for a long time. We don’t need to be selling, nationalizing, and finding technologies to then promptly can (put an end to). Rather, we should promote small business growth with a remodel of tax codes and local laws. As well as a mindset shift toward the value of creating a business, running it well, employing people and offering a great service.

Startups, scaling, and venture capital (which is near to nonexistent in Zimbabwe) are all good when the ecosystem exists, but when it doesn’t, small business growth and designing your life around a great small business is a worthwhile cause and should be applauded, promoted and incentivized.

How?

Here are a few ideas:

Local laws that give tax free benefits to new small businesses for the first 5 years of their existence, or else until they hit $250k in revenue.

Duty free imports/exports for new businesses until they’re sustainable.

Better hiring and firing laws—if someone sucks at their job, we should be able to fire them, no questions asked. You’re not entitled to a job if you don’t perform.

Clear investment incentives for local and foreign investors.

Low capital gains for investors—incentivize them to reinvest in the nation and the community.

Seek grants (with no strings attached) for government to match entrepreneurs efforts.

Starting a business and running it for a long time is something we should promote more.

Split bananas (a banana cut in half) are being served as banana splits. It’s confusing people. And for the record, they're not the same thing. It’s bad news. The new currency will help resolve issues...It’s a split banana and they’re trying to sell it to us for the same price as a...

]]>Split bananas (a banana cut in half) are being served as banana splits. It’s confusing people. And for the record, they're not the same thing. It’s bad news. The new currency will help resolve issues...It’s a split banana and they’re trying to sell it to us for the same price as a...

Split bananas (a banana cut in half) are being served as banana splits. It’s confusing people. And for the record, they're not the same thing. It’s bad news.

The new currency will help resolve issues, says the government. It’s a split banana and they’re trying to sell it to us for the same price as a banana split. No one wants it.

I was served pork ribs once when I ordered beef. The waiter said it was basically the same thing. No it wasn’t.

The new currency will be one to one. No it won’t because the black market knows that it’s two halves of a piece of fruit.

Serving instant coffee in the place of brewed coffee, claiming that it’s fresh. Split banana.

The opportunities are ripe and ready but if you’re a foreigner you have to give up a chunk of equity right at the beginning. (And there’s a ton of fee’s that you might no expect that will jump on you). Split banana.

We’ve seen it happen in our history too.

Living in a land like that where the point of reference for your money is nothing more than a printing press, but at least it’s “our own currency.” Split banana.

A 100 million dollar bill would buy you a loaf of bread, if that. The nation has been plunged into such grief with disease, sickness and deprivation. And money has meant absolutely nothing.

The economists that wrote Freakonomics described Zim’s 2008 rendezvous as a case study because it defied basic economics. We’re living in the Matrix. We are a Star Wars story. It’s another planet.

When you’re expecting the freedom, the variety and the brilliant combination of a banana split... (Or to put it in life terms, freedom, opportunity, independence and a brighter future)... and you get something far more inferior. That’s the split banana.

It’s not the same and we have to call it out. We have to send it back to the kitchen. We must put our spoons down and demand what we were shown in the menu picture. The problem lies when the waiter doesn’t realize the difference.

"When the very institutions that were intended to give us guarantees and intended to give us security and safety are tottering now and it’s not just in one country, it’s all over the globe…” Ravi Zacharias

To solve one problem in Africa, you end up solving seven along the way. Are we getting smarter or dumber? We're good at downloading apps. We're legends at finding new ways to solve old problems. We're geniuses when it comes to all the ways we can use...

]]>To solve one problem in Africa, you end up solving seven along the way. Are we getting smarter or dumber? We're good at downloading apps. We're legends at finding new ways to solve old problems. We're geniuses when it comes to all the ways we can use...

"To solve one problem in Africa, you end up solving seven along the way.” Takunda Chingonzoh, founder of The Tech Village

Are we getting smarter or dumber?

We're good at downloading apps. We're legends at finding new ways to solve old problems. We're geniuses when it comes to all the ways we can use social media. So what?

There's a lot of problem solving going on in Africa—hubs, labs, meet-ups and the like. Africa is quick at seeing a problem (probably because there are so many we have to overcome in a day), but is Africa good at avoiding problems?

Instead, over a billion dollars, a lot of energy and a ton of innovation has been spend on managing the crisis.

Zimbabwe's drug problem, electricity problem and currency problems could have been avoided. Instead it's affected millions of people and crippled a country.

South Africa's Water Problem could have been avoided. Instead the government didn't act soon enough and the problem was welcomed with open arms.

The Rwandan Genocide could have been avoided. Instead "U.S., French, and Belgian authorities, as well as those at the United Nations, received dozens of warnings in the months before the genocide but failed to act effectively." The result? 800,000 people were massacred.

The Titanic disaster could have been avoided. Instead pride got in the way and a captain who was determined to disregard other sound advice. People died (and a movie was made about the disaster).

Are we on social media too much to avoid problems?

Are we innovating around dumb mistakes that shouldn't have been made by our leaders?

Are we getting smarter because of it?

While 4 hours a day is spent at a bank to get money (because of a problem that could have been avoided), young people in Beijing are coming up with world-changing ideas to capitlize on the work ethic of Zimbabweans to make China rich.

Come on people! Avoid the problems that can be avoided, otherwise we'll spend all of our creativity fixing dumb issues and we won't be smarter for it.

Big or small problems should be avoided. I'm not talking about procrastination. That's the ignorance of a disaster.

What do we need to do to avoid problems, make it part of systems and keep our energies focused on things that are progressive?

Look for symptoms and pre-plan. There's always symptoms before the horse kick. A twitch, a negative attitude, a look in the eyes. Learn to diagnose better.

Maintain the excellence. This is hard and it's a beast, but a plane, a car, a building or company all need maintenance so that it doesn't eventually just implode. If it’s working, keep it working.

Don't ignore the warnings. A leak in a roof, an iceberg filled sea or a call about a disgruntled opposition.

Vividly consider the alternative. What’s the cost of allowing a famine, a disease outbreak or a war? What would it look like? The lives at stake, the jobs at stake the social state of a nation. Too often it comes as a surprise and by then it's too late.

An app doesn't make us smart or effective, and neither does the ability to gain more followers. Pursuing a vision that gives hope and value to people does... And you can't do that when all you're doing is fixing problems that could have been avoided.

The best time to buy a stock is in the valley, just before the boom. The best time to buy a home is when no one else is buying. The best time to invest in yourself is when you feel crappy and worthless. And the best time to start your idea is when your competition laughs at you. You can buy...

]]>The best time to buy a stock is in the valley, just before the boom. The best time to buy a home is when no one else is buying. The best time to invest in yourself is when you feel crappy and worthless. And the best time to start your idea is when your competition laughs at you. You can buy...

The best time to buy a stock is in the valley, just before the boom.

The best time to buy a home is when no one else is buying.

The best time to invest in yourself is when you feel crappy and worthless.

The best time to start your idea is when your competition laughs at you. (Read Netflix's story in Death to the Dinosaurs)

You can buy assets and land for cheaper than ever now. Your idea may not scale quickly and dominate the continent, but if you start now, you can carve out a niche and build it for growth.

The doldrums is a region of the ocean that has calm winds. It’s the point between two waves. It’s the depression before the rise.

Invest when you’re in the doldrums. You can’t afford not to. Don’t allow yourself to remain at the mercy of your situation and your circumstances.

The Strong Sense of Fulfillment. You feel like you're wearing sunglasses. You just got new shoes. You walk like a hero. You look at the horizon like its already been conquered. It's a strong sense of fulfillment, but for what? Maybe for a job well done? What do you get fulfillment from?

]]>The Strong Sense of Fulfillment. You feel like you're wearing sunglasses. You just got new shoes. You walk like a hero. You look at the horizon like its already been conquered. It's a strong sense of fulfillment, but for what? Maybe for a job well done? What do you get fulfillment from?

The Strong Sense of Fulfillment.

You feel like you're wearing sunglasses. You just got new shoes. You walk like a hero. You look at the horizon like its already been conquered. It's a strong sense of fulfillment, but for what? Maybe for a job well done?

What do you get fulfillment from?

Starting a business?

Designing a logo?

Eating a magnum bar?

Posting a picture?

What is a job well done?

Harare International Airport. Complete with broken sidewalks, no air conditioning, and escalator not working. The airport gets a brand new LED screen for their baggage claim. This thing is huge.

I walked through customs and saw the new feature to the airport with a slight bit of excitement. After all, it’s been a very long time since anything new has happened in the terminals. This screen displayed the latest news and the upcoming weather.

However, my excitement turned to bewilderment as the screen forecasted snow flurries over the weekend and claimed that temperatures would be below zero. Then I realized the news report that flashes intermittently was from months back with a saggy headline about something Obama did (but never actually did).

Lies. The screen was lying to me and to everyone in the baggage claim. And President Mugabe's picture hung right above the LED screen.

Who put this TV up? Who turned it on? And why did they walk away without putting correct information on the screen where thousands of people arrive (many looking for opportunity)? It showcases a high degree of silly execution.

It was on. It had images moving on the screen—and someone got fulfillment out of that. Someone was satisfied with nonsensical info. Someone botched up, but thought they did a good job.

So it begs the question: how easy is it for you to be fulfilled?

A job half done?

Turning on the switch?

The bare minimum?

The screen showed the same information for three months. I kept traveling in and out of the country, and each time I saw the snow forecast in a nation that was in full blown summer. Not to mention the fact that it never snows here!

I've realized this is a ravaging disease in Africa—doing the bare minimum.

But here are some key lessons from this story:

If you turn it on, it must be relevant. Wrong information reflects badly on leadership and no one takes it seriously.

If you set it up, it must be helpful. Way too many taglines and mission statements on company walls or government buildings say incredible things about what they aim to be. But none of it is helpful, if it's not real.

If you buy it, it should be useful. Too many people buy things or accomplish things that are not useful to the bottom line or the team's momentum.

If you're going to do something, do it right.Too many companies and people are satisfied with the bare minimum. And when the bare minimum is snow in the tropics, you can see why everyone laughs.

If it's mediocre, DO NOT applaud.There's too much of this going on. Someone applauded the tv installer. I've seen people congratulate event holders who started the event 2 hours late. There's nothing to congratulate. We do a disservice to the economy, to our children and to our wildlife when we clap for rubbish. Then our kids will keep believing mis-information, and the circus of negligence and ignorance will never leave town.

Kick out the circus. And aim that your Fulfillment Factor is set to nothing less than Excellent.

They never saw it coming. The ice storm, the new technology, the asteroid from outer space, the inefficient way of doing things, the cries of frustration from their customers.The dinosaurs never sense it first. They start to feel the rumble in the ground, but by then, it’s too late...

]]>They never saw it coming. The ice storm, the new technology, the asteroid from outer space, the inefficient way of doing things, the cries of frustration from their customers.The dinosaurs never sense it first. They start to feel the rumble in the ground, but by then, it’s too late...

They never saw it coming. The ice storm, the new technology, the asteroid from outer space, the inefficient way of doing things, the cries of frustration from their customers.

The dinosaurs never sense it first. They start to feel the rumble in the ground, but by then, it’s too late.

Did you know Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to buy Netflix for $50 million? Do you know what was included in that offer to join forces? Netflix would run their online distribution. Yes, Blockbuster would still be around today and be a $20 billion USD behemoth.

Instead, it’s rumored that they laughed Netflix’s founders out of the room.

Blockbuster was a dinosaur. They owned the DVD rental market. But their Ice Age came and it hit them fast.

[Sidenote, Jack Sparrow DVDs in Zim would have put Blockbuster out of business on Day 1. If you can’t figure out what Jack Sparrow does, it’s always in the name! Ha!]

Everyone has blind spots. And so do your competitors. Are you humble enough to see a new way of doing your business and adapt, join forces, or shift how you’ve always done things?

But you don’t have to take my word for it, ask Mr. T-Rex or Brontosaurus what I’m talking about.

I was lost. Completely lost. My business meeting was cancelled 12 hours prior. My flights delayed. And I’d never been to Disney World so I just wanted to drive up and see it. I took a turn into an empty parking lot. It seemed there had been activity just a few...

]]>I was lost. Completely lost. My business meeting was cancelled 12 hours prior. My flights delayed. And I’d never been to Disney World so I just wanted to drive up and see it. I took a turn into an empty parking lot. It seemed there had been activity just a few...

I was lost. Completely lost. My business meeting was cancelled 12 hours prior. My flights delayed. And I’d never been to Disney World so I just wanted to drive up and see it.

I took a turn into an empty parking lot. It seemed there had been activity just a few minutes earlier, but I had escaped the traffic and commotion.

But as I turned into the dimly lit parking lot something amazing happened. It was so amazing that it startled me. Freaked me out actually.

I drove into the lot and was merely looking around when I noticed half-a-dozen employees or so. I couldn’t tell if they were about to clock out for the night and leave or what was going on. But as soon as they saw me 1/2 a km away, they started waving frantically like they were saying hello to a long lost friend they hadn’t seen in ages.

“Welcome!" They were shouting. Smiling, waving, greeting me—their long lost guest.

Let me remind you. I was lost. I had no idea where I was. I wasn’t a paying customer. I had never been here before. And I was in an obscure parking lot at 9 at night. Yet there they were, welcoming me.

How’s that for customer service?

It’s not what you say. It’s what you do when no one is looking. They made my night. With all of the flight delays and traveling, that was the highlight. Someone who gave me a magical moment in the middle of a random parking lot on a rainy night.

Are you wowing people as they approach your business? Or is it just another random car that’s lost?

We have been receiving quite a number of inquiries from many of you asking about how to raise financing or grow your business during this economic time. We love your questions and try our best to give you helpful answers. Here’s one that we thought we would share publicly for the benefit of everyone reading...

]]>We have been receiving quite a number of inquiries from many of you asking about how to raise financing or grow your business during this economic time. We love your questions and try our best to give you helpful answers. Here’s one that we thought we would share publicly for the benefit of everyone reading...

We have been receiving quite a number of inquiries from many of you asking about how to raise financing or grow your business during this economic time.

We love your questions and try our best to give you helpful answers.

Here’s one that we thought we would share publicly for the benefit of everyone reading:

Question: how do I finance and grow my new business?

Answer: The best way we’ve found to build when you’re first starting out is to take manageable steps. If you have identified an initial product you’d like to go with, then find half a dozen customers who will sign a Purchase Order (PO) agreement that states they’ll pay upon receipt of that product.

You can then find trade financing for an agreement and execute that order. Once you do that a couple of times, you’ll begin to attract specific financial partners who can help you step-by-step. It’s not easy and you may have to self-finance the first gig.

Hustling at the start of the deal to prove the market demand will go a long way when seeking financing. Also showing the POs in hand to signify that you have buyers lined up with signed agreements will also solidify your business case.

Then execute. You show yourself faithful in that way and you’ll have no problem financing future orders.

In this economy, that’s the best plan to get a new business funded that offers products and services. Foreign investors aren’t moving cash unless they’re already working in the country. Most of them have paused all of their new financing efforts for the time being.

Take manageable steps and produce as much trust and goodwill up front in your business dealings as you can. Then execute and show faithfulness on the backend.

Where do your answers come from? Yourself? Your team? A guru? A foreign investor?Outside the culture you live in? Think it through. Do you ever ponder your life or problems? Ever try to find more efficient and effective ways to solve situations in your world? ...

]]>Where do your answers come from? Yourself? Your team? A guru? A foreign investor?Outside the culture you live in? Think it through. Do you ever ponder your life or problems? Ever try to find more efficient and effective ways to solve situations in your world? ...

Where do your answers come from?

Yourself?

Your team?

A guru?

A foreign investor?

Outside the culture you live in?

Think it through. Do you ever ponder your life or problems? Ever try to find more efficient and effective ways to solve situations in your world? Or are they always someone else’s problems?

You see, world change doesn’t start with the world. That’s a misconception. It actually starts with YOU and me doing what we can do to solve a local problem right next door to us.

Did you know that if every Christian couple in Zimbabwe adopted an orphan, there would be no orphan problem in Zimbabwe?

Did you know that if every household in Zim paid a private company to collect their refuse, there wouldn’t be rubbish in the streets like there is?

How could we extrapolate this counterintuitive thinking?

Road construction

Internet penetration

Crypto-currency

Energy consumption

Transport of goods (basic household goods, petrol, tyres, livestock)

Agriculture

The list is really endless once you start thinking it through.

So seriously, where do you look for answers?

In Nigeria, millions of people are profiting off of the next guy in line. It’s a cycle of extortion. If those in power can do it to us, why shouldn’t we do it to each other? Read more about that here.

And now, our friends from the East are making it very clear, they’re not interested in Africa to help Africa, they are self-interested (aren’t we all?). Read more about that here.

We can’t find all of our answers externally. We have to solve our local problems. We can find good external examples, for sure. But we need to be cognizant that thinking local, solving local, and building local leads to world change. Think about it.

What are you entitled to as a human being? This is an important question in defining your worldview, as well as how successful you’ll be as an entrepreneur. Do you wake up thinking the world owes it to you? That they should...

]]>What are you entitled to as a human being? This is an important question in defining your worldview, as well as how successful you’ll be as an entrepreneur. Do you wake up thinking the world owes it to you? That they should...

What are you entitled to as a human being?

This is an important question in defining your worldview, as well as how successful you’ll be as an entrepreneur.

Do you wake up thinking the world owes it to you? That they should thank you for being alive?

Do you deserve the air you’re breathing into your lungs?

Are you the savior of your world?

What about your partners? Should they affirm and thank you more for how awesome you are?

Our current generation (and younger) resist labels. We don’t like them. Don’t call me a this or a that. I am my own person! We resist being put into a specific box because all of us are unique. And we strive to show the world this.

This can be one of our greatest strengths. It breeds innovation and diversity of thought. However, it also can be a pitfall of ours because it can lead to a great sense of self-reliance, egotism, and pride.

An attitude of gratitude is a great way to combat allowing this "unique essence" to remain humble.

In reality, we aren’t owed anything. We came into this world with nothing and we’ll leave it with nothing temporal. A few things that will last are the principles and relationships that we formed while on earth. Not much lives on into eternity.

You’re not owed the air you breathe.

You’re not owed success in life.

You’re not owed a second chance (or third, or first for that matter).

We live in an incredible era of juxtaposition—globalization has made the world flat. It’s leveled the playing field. Whether you live in a republic, democracy, autocracy, or dictatorship—we now have access to many of the same things (thank you internet and online education…).

So be thankful for what you have. And give credit to whom credit is due. Be thankful to the Creator for creation. Be thankful to your business partners for their trust in you. Be grateful to your spouse for his/her love. And be thankful for the opportunity to have access to the greatest innovation revolution in history.

You can create and be unique and be your own person. But if you’re not grateful for what you have, you’ll never be grateful for what you will have.